Cellblock Haunts
by sapphire blue-ruby red roses
Summary: When the team accepted the case as an old rundown jail, they didn't think the case was going to be a rudimentary haunting, but they definitely didn't think it was going to get especially dangerous. Oh how wrong they were. Sequel to Ill Fated Reunion, major character death at the end
1. Chapter 1: Headache from Hell

***shouting* The trilogy to A Christmas Gift and the sequel to Ill Fated Reunion. Can you believe it? I'm at this point already! This is really surprising. This is… I don't even know what year I've been writing on Fanfiction. I hope this story is just as good, if not, better than its predecessor. Let's have a good run with this (:**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt in any way, shape, or form.**

Chapter 1: Headache From Hell

_My eyes darted around the room, never fixing on one object for more than a couple of moments. The room was dark and dank. It would have been impossible for me to see the other side of the small room if it hadn't been for the slivers of light drifting through the cracks in the floor above. Dust motes floated through the spray of light. Footsteps and voices echoed from above my head, tempting and so close, yet so far away._

_Pain shot through my aching wrists as I tried to shift. They were slick with what I thought was sweat, but could have easily been blood with how raw they felt. Prickly rope wound around my wrists, binding them together. The same had been done to my ankles which felt equally as raw. How long had I been down here?_

"_Hello?" I tried to call out, but I only choked on the dry wad of cloth that had been stuffed into my mouth._

_What was going on? How in the world had I gotten here? Last I remembered I was climbing into bed with Naru. That surely couldn't have led to this. What had happened between then and now?_

_I stared around, trying to find any kind of door. There was none of the usual ones, and there was no trap door above my head. My eyes drifted down and widened. On the other side of the room, a heavy metal trap door was inlaid in the concrete. It was slowly being pushed up._

_Letting out a muffled shout of fear, I scrambled back away from the hatch. Though I didn't know who or what was going to appear, terror coursed through my veins. Adrenaline poured into my blood. My heart rate shot through the roof. My eyes went as wide as they could go._

"_Hello darling, how have you been? Have you been good while I was away?" a man with carrot orange hair and a spattering of golden freckles across his nose and cheeks asked in a whisper, shoving the door open. He kept a hold of the handle, carefully lowering it to the dirty floor. A smile of white teeth split his grimy face as he pulled a bag up and threw it on the floor. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long. I had to gather the material for our game tonight."_

_I whimpered involuntarily, cringing into a corner._

"_Come now, don't be like that. I know you enjoy them as much as I do," he said, crawling towards me. He pressed his hand to my cheek, gentle as a lover's touch._

_I turned my face away, letting out a sound of protest. He shouldn't have been touching me. It made me feel dirty. It made me feel violated. I hated the feeling of anticipation that coursed through my body. Not the anticipation for pleasure, but that anticipation that came from knowing pain was soon at hand. My muscles clenched, quaking with the effort of trying to break free of my too tight bonds._

_The man flicked me in the ear. "Now, now, none of that. Let's be civil." He pulled my face back towards him, pressing his cracked lips to mine._

_I jerked my chin from his hand, shoving my knees into his stomach._

_He growled, anger slipping from every pore. "Fine, then. If you want to have it that way…" He stomped over to the black draw-string bag he'd brought with him, ripping it open viciously. "We play this any which way you want."_

_Sweat slipped down my spine. I tried to see around him, but the objects he was fiddling with were obscured by his body. When he turned, I let out a screech that was only swallowed by the cloth gagging me._

_The man grinned, showing little to no teeth this time. He held up a menacing syringe of about an inch in diameter and three inches in height. It was filled with a clear liquid that had my blood turning to ice and my eyes flitting around looking for an escape. "This will only hurt for a moment," he soothed as he shoved the needle through my skin._

"_Don't let him get you_," a female voice whispered in my ear before I flew upright in bed.

…..

I groaned, flinging an arm over my eyes. My brain pounded a savage rhythm against the inside of my skull, trying to break through its calcium prison. With even the slightest sliver of light, the rhythm picked up becoming erratic and excited. It felt like a major hangover times ten. I wondered idly if I happened to crack my skull open would relieve the pressure behind my eyes?

Carefully, I turned on my side, burying my face deep in the cushions of the couch. Any light that had previously been slipping through the cracks in my arms was shut out, but the dark dampness provided by the cushions and my breath had the pounding slowing down only to pick up some extra strength. I just wasn't going to catch a break today.

Breathing deeply, I let my mind slip into the place between consciousness and sleep. In that place, the pain was less pervasive, only flaring angrily if I moved in any way. I was slowly drifting into an uncomfortable sleep when lips pressed gently to my temple. The pain immediately receded becoming only a dull, ignorable ache.

"Thank you," I mumbled before slipping into oblivion. I was woken who knows how much later when someone shook my shoulder.

"Hello? Miss?" a quiet female voice asked, contrasting oddly with the strong hand that gripped my shoulder, shaking me into reality.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. I shoved myself up still facing the back of the couch. A groan slipped through my lips as the pain came flooding back, the tempo picking up an ugly staccato. Grasping my head, I glanced over my shoulder to the woman who stood behind me.

She had chestnut colored hair pulled into a tight, no nonsense ponytail at the back of her head. Her eyes were a startling sky blue with flecks of silver. She was tall, ranging about 5' 6" or 5' 7" with a strong build. The more rounded shape of her eyes and olive tan of her skin suggested she was either of mixed decent or from the Air Force Base in Yakota. She pulled back slowly, tucking her thumbs into the duty belt clipped around her waist. She wore a light blue button up shirt over navy blue pants. Her shoes were shiny black. A navy blue cap was tucked under her arm. "Are you back with the living, miss?" she asked, her voice stronger now.

A deep blush spread across my cheeks. "Yeah, sorry. Um, you are?" I pulled my legs off of the couch, pushing my hair out of my face.

"Annabeth Oshiro, I made an appointment yesterday for a consultation with Mr. Shibuya," the woman said, watching me closely, "Are you sure you're alright? You're rather pale and it didn't look like you were sleeping all that well."

"No, I'm fine. Really. Thank you for your concern. I'll be just one moment," I told her, jumping to my feet. My eyes narrowed as the sudden movement sent the pounding into a frenzy. I hurried towards Naru's door, tapping on Lin's office door as I passed. I could hear voices conversing inside, but I didn't stay long enough to figure out who the other person was. "Sit wherever you like. Make yourself comfortable," I called before slipping into Naru's office, sliding to the floor to press my head between my knees once the door had closed behind me.

"Mai? What's the matter?" Naru asked, standing from his desk and coming to crouch beside me. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, watching me.

"There's a client waiting for you," I gritted out, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain slicing through my skull.

He was quiet for a moment. "I didn't ask who was here, I asked what was wrong. I know the client hasn't done anything to warrant you pain," he said, sliding his hand under my chin, pulling my face up.

"My head hurts really badly. It feels like someone is slowly trying to cleave my skull in half," I said, cracking my eyes open to look him in the eye. He frowned.

"Your head is still hurting from the dream you had last night?" he asked more to himself than to me.

I answered anyway. "Yeah, but the pain has increased since earlier. I don't know what the matter is," I whimpered, pulling my chin from his fingers and burying my face in his shirt. His scent sent a shiver of pleasure rolling through my body that even the pain couldn't obscure.

"After this client, we can head home and you can try to sleep," he told me, pulling me to my feet.

"Alright," I mumbled, my face still making friends with his shirt and solid chest.

The door slammed open without warning. Naru pulled us out of the path of destruction before we could be slammed into the wall, glaring daggers at his twin. "Hey, you guys, planning on coming out of this room anytime soon? We've got a young lady waiting outside for her interview," he said, grinning widely like interrupting us had become a favorite pastime of his.

"We were just getting ready to," Naru snapped.

"Not by what I see."

I turned to glare at him, my eyes narrowed in pain. "Can you not do this right now, Gene? It's not a good time."

Gene cocked his head to the side, watching me with carefully vigilant eyes. "Hey, Mai, what's the matter? Are you hurt?" he asked, worry worming its way into his voice.

I waved him off, pressing a hand to my forehead. "No, I'm fine. Let's go." I led the way to the door and out into the main room where Annabeth and Lin were waiting, conversing quietly. If I hadn't been trying to keep my head together, I would have found that more surprising. "Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water?" I asked Annabeth as I passed her.

"Coffee, please," she said, eyes following me before turning to look at Gene and Naru. Her eyes went wide with surprise. Obviously, she hadn't been expecting the pair to look so much alike. Either that, or she hadn't been expecting Naru's age. "Hello, are you Mr. Shibuya?" she asked, turning to Naru. It was easy to tell them apart since Naru still wore dark colors though he was going easy on the black now, and Gene usually wore lighter shades of blue.

Naru nodded, coming around the couch. He deposited himself in the seat across from Annabeth as Gene took up the seat next to him. "Yes, now why don't you start off by telling us your name and what location you believe is haunted."

**Whelp guys, there's the first chappy of this story! Haha, I just kind of screwed myself over because I've got my NaNoWriMo story to revise plus AP English on top of that, and now I have added this and will soon be adding the sequel to Hidden to this load. Yep, you heard that right, I'll be starting the sequel to Hidden soon. We'll see how that goes xD Anyway, everyone! Review for your starving writer! She has been craving the reviews of her lovely readers for weeks now!**


	2. Chapter 2: Females and Males

**The second chapter! Yay! Next chapter will probably be up around the same time next week. I'm hoping to get the sequel to "Hidden" up and started soon, but we'll see. There are many more Hetalia one-shots coming to invade your lives so look forward to those if you read my Hetalia stuff, and you don't have to worry about it if you don't. Enjoy the new chapter! :D**

**Disclaimer: I sadly do not own Ghost Hunt**

**P.S. - Remember that any speech "****underlined****" like this means they're talking in English.**

Chapter 2: Females and Males

"My name is Oshiro Annabeth, as I told that young girl I talked to earlier. I work over at the police station just outside of Tokyo which sometimes acts as a jail house," Annabeth said confidently, crossing her legs at the knees and resting her cap on the top, "We've been having… some strange problems for a while now." She dropped her chin into the crook of her thumb and forefinger, resting her elbow on her thigh.

"And these strange things include…?" Gene prompted, quirking his eyebrow up.

"Well, it seems to only be happening to the females mostly. Police officers and inmates alike. There's not very many of us. Some things happen to the men too, but not often," she said, waving her hand through the air with a roll of her eyes, "Sexist is what this thing is. The men usually get pushed or their stuff goes missing, little things like that, but what happens to the women is much worse. It starts out somewhat innocent, and then goes very bad. Sometimes, the females go missing for a few days. We eventually find them, and none have died yet, but we've had a couple of close calls. I was one of those close calls at some point. Three months in the hospital is what it landed me."

Both Naru and Gene frowned. Rubbing my temples, I sighed, picking up the tray and stepping back into the front room. "Here you go," I murmured, slipping the cups in front of their rightful owners, "I'm just going to go die over here." I left the tray on the table to shuffle back to my desk and drop my head on its surface.

"Did you have a late night last night?" Annabeth asked, her head popping up from its position to watch my progression.

I rolled my head from side to side. "No, I don't drink all that often. Anyways, carry on. Ignore me. I'll be fine," I mumbled, waving her concern away. I let out a long-suffering sigh, letting my eyes slip closed. I focused on the people behind me, soaking in the facts of the conversation.

"What can you remember from your experience?" Naru asked all business.

Annabeth pursed her lips. "This is where my superiors hate this whole thing." She dropped back into her hunched over position, sighing. "They think we're lying to a point, but they can't dispute the evidence. The point is that none of us remember what happened to us."

Naru's thin eyebrow slowly arched up. "You don't remember a single thing? I can see why your superiors have a hard time believing your story."

"I never said that I didn't remember a single thing. I said I didn't remember what happened," Annabeth snapped, narrowing her eyes at the man across from her. "Insubordinate little brat," she muttered under her breath. Lin disguised the chuckle as a cough, turning his face away from the twins. Annabeth looked back up at Naru and elaborated. "All of us, not just me, remember a small dark room. Windowless. A trap door was on the other side of the room from where we were tied up." Her whole frame shook as if she was back in that room.

I sat bolt upright in my chair, staring wide-eyed at the female across the room from me. "A-a t-trap door? Was the ceiling made of wooden planks? Like hardwood floors?" I stuttered, headache forgotten.

Annabeth thought for a moment, staring up at the ceiling before turning around to look at me, her eyebrows pulling together. "…Yes. How did you know that? I don't ever remember seeing you at the station, let along in the jail."

Instead of answering, I gulped down the bile that was rising in my throat. I looked to Naru and nodded shakily.

"Ms. Oshiro, we'll take your case," Naru said abruptly. He snapped his notebook shut getting to his feet. "When is the best time to start our investigation?"

Annabeth got to her feet. "Tomorrow if that's possible, around noon when everybody is changing shifts. That way you won't be getting in anyone's way. They get kind of snippy about that," she said, stretching out her hand to the pair across the table from her, "It was nice meeting all of you."

Naru took her hand in a tight grip that was easily reciprocated. "Likewise." He dropped her hand three seconds later, moving around the couch and disappearing back into his office.

Gene took her hand next, more ginger than Naru had been. "It was nice meeting you too. I look forward to working on this case with you." He smiled widely easily disguising his discomfort. I frowned wondering what had him on edge.

"Yes, of course." She shook Lin's hand before moving towards the door. "I hope you feel better, young lady. Drink lots of water and get a good amount of sleep. Maybe that'll help with the headache," she advised as she passed me, smiling widely. Before disappearing through the door open, she fitted her cap back on her head.

We all stared after her silently wondering how this case was going to play out.

…..

"We're doing what? Where?" Jessica asked, staring at me intently. She sat across from me, leaning back on her hands on the floor. Damien and she had come back a few months ago after being gone for almost an entire year. They were thinking of getting a residence here and also keeping the one in America so they could switch back and forth between the two. Her Japanese had improved significantly since their last meeting.

"Oh goodie! A police station. A police station!" Alice cried happily, jumping up and down on the couch beside me. She kicked her legs excitedly until she kicked the table overturning it onto Jessica. They let out twin shrieks of surprise and pain.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Jessica shouted, shoving the table off of her, "Could you not fucking do that? That hurt!"

Masako, Ayako and I laughed lightly. Even though neither of the other two females knew what Jessica had shouted, they had gotten the gist of it. Jessica wasn't the only one who'd improved her foreign language skills over the past year.

"Can we just not break my coffee table please? I do need that," I asked, glad that I had my cup safely tucked between my knees and not all over Jessica or my TV that sat behind her blaring some anime that I thought was named Hetalia, but couldn't be sure. "But Alice is right, we're going to be investigating a police station that is just outside of Tokyo."

The girls were quiet, pursing their lips in thought. "Okay, well, where in the hell did the men disappear to? They were here for like two seconds and then flew away like a bunch of little sparrows. I mean, come on, what the crap?" Ayako complained, fluttering her hands through the air to emphasize her point.

"I think they went out drinking," Masako murmured from behind her sleeve.

"No way! Even John?" I asked, watching her with wide eyes.

"Well, yeah," Alice said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, now speaking in Japanese so the entire group could understand her, "When we were younger we used to drink together all the time. He's so much fun when he's drunk. Anyway, he likes drinking as much as the next person and will do it from time to time."

Everyone's jaws except for Jessica's decided now would be a good time to make friends with my carpet. We gaped at her our minds rushing to process the information just given to us. "B-but he's a priest!" I sputtered.

Alice shrugged. "That's what confession is for right? Even priests need their sins cleansed sometimes though his are less offensive than some of the things he's probably been told in the confession." She smiled, swinging her legs back and forth once more despite what had just happened a few minutes before.

"That's not fair," Ayako complained, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, "If they're celebrating Damien and your wedding, well, and Naru and Gene's twenty-first birthdays, then why aren't we with them? I want to get drunk too!" She grumbled something unintelligible that turned into a growl.

"They're men," Jessica said simply, aggravation worming its way into her voice. Apparently Ayako wasn't the only one put off by the fact that the men had gone off without the rest of us.

"Me too! I want to get hammered too!" Alice said, pouting like a child. Masako nodded in agreement, the frown on her lips obvious even from behind her sleeve.

I thought for a second, staring up at the ceiling. Without saying anything, I jumped to my feet and hurried into the kitchen. I searched through the top cabinets in my kitchen, moving things around so I could see the back of the cupboard.

The couple of bottles stored in the back called to me. "_Come drink me. Come drink me. You know you want to,_" the whispered invitingly.

"Vooodkaaaaa," I heard from the TV and was saved the trouble of having to pick which bottle to pull down. Just in case, I pulled them all down, but took the bottle of vodka and shot glasses out to the other women.

"Hey guys, look what I found," I called in a singsong voice, holding up both the bottle and shot glasses, "Looks like we'll get to drink after all. Let's have our own fun without the guys and make them wish they had brought us. We don't need them to have fun."

Cheers ran around the group, deafening me and overpowering the TV. I felt a twinge of guilt for what the guys would come home to find as I choked down the first shot which was washed away by another shot right behind the first. All I could think as the liquor warmed my stomach was that they deserved it for leaving us behind.

**Whelp, there you go. I hope this chapter wasn't too boring. We'll see the repercussions of everyone's partying in the next chappy and hopefully get some ghost activity right off the back. We'll see though. Anyway, review! Review for the reader goddess in the sky! She commands you!**


	3. Chapter 3: Hangovers for Everyone

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt!**

**Warning!: unedited, have fun :D**

Chapter 3: Hangovers for Everyone

We all groaned awake the next morning like dinosaurs rising from the grave. I sat up slowly, dropping my head into my hands. Now my head was splitting with a hangover instead of that hell of a headache. "That is the last time I let them pull me into drinking that much," I grumbled, my eyes still tightly closed.

My sides were curiously warm. The bed dipped down on either side. Breathing echoed from both sides instead of just the customary one. That's when the warm masses shifted. I suppressed a yelp of surprise as four arms wrapped around my waist. Snapping my eyes open, I glared down at the twins snuggled into my sides. "Like children sometimes, I swear," I muttered, pulling their arms open slowly as not to wake them. Clambering off my bed, letting the brothers slide towards each other, I went to survey the damage.

It honestly wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting. There was no put or broken items, and save for Lin, the entire group was spread out across my floor and couch, some snoring so loudly you'd think I was housing a baby dragon. They clutched at their clothing, my floor not too warm, or were snuggled up to another team member. Yasu was one of the few of those snuggling, spooning with Monk, though I wasn't completely sure he'd done that on accident. Masako and John were curled on opposite ends of the couch, their legs overlapping up to their knees. Alice was pressed into Jessica's back.

Sighing in relief, I tiptoed over the sleeping bodies to the empty bottles obscuring the top of my coffee table. Gently, I moved all of the bottles back to the kitchen and threw blankets over my teammates.

Over an hour later, after I'd taken a shower and started breakfast, was when I heard the first stirrings of life. Groans. Groans everywhere, followed by a few shouts of surprise. I smirked to myself, shaking my head. Yep, Yasu had spooned with Monk on purpose.

"Morning," came a mumble from behind me, louder and kinder than my boyfriend's voice.

"Morning, Gene. How's your hangover treating you?" I asked, shoving a plate of bacon into the microwave before turning to smile at him.

He grumbled his reply, shuffling over to my fridge and pulling it open. He paused inside the door before glancing over the top of it. "Are you making a culture mixed breakfast?" he mumbled, looking between the rise pot and my frying pan.

"Yeah, I guess so. I thought Damien and Jessica would enjoy it more," I explained, wiping my hands off on a hand towel. I tossed it onto the counter turning back to see Naru approaching Gene from behind. I watched him, an amused smirk spreading across my face.

Naru stood behind Gene until he turned around to see what the menacing presence behind him was. He let out a shriek, slumping to the floor, clutching his chest. "Jesus, Noll. Why do ya' gotta to that?" he whined.

"Because you're standing in front of the fridge with the door open which equals wasting money," Naru said matter-of-factly, pushing his brother out of the way before closing the door.

I laughed. "I see the hangover is treating you kindly as well," I said with a grin, returning to the food in my pan. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Naru shoot an irritated glare at his twin.

"Thanks to someone," he growled.

"Hey! Hey now! You can't blame that all on me. You gladly took all the drinks I handed you!" Gene shouted. We all dissolved into groans, clutching at our heads.

"Can we not yell while fighting until our hangovers are gone?" I asked, glaring at Gene through slits.

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Gene mumbled, crawling away into the living room. Once he was out of sight, Dameon stumbled in, pulling Jessica along, her arm slung over his shoulder.

"Mai, where's your bathroom?" he asked, struggling into the kitchen.

"Down the hall and to the left," I said, pointing out the door. Silently, I prayed that Jessica could hold down her liquor before getting to my bathroom. I really didn't want to have to clean up anyone's vomit before heading to the case. Speaking of the case… "Hey, Naru, when are we heading off to the case?" I asked as Damien stumbled back out the door and I turned back to my pan.

Silence. I turned, my brow furrowed to find the brothers in wrestling match to the death. Naru was on his back, his leg wrapped around Gene's next while Gene had his arm strung between Naru's legs, holding onto the back of his neck. Just out of sight of the pair, I could see Yasu recording the entire scene on his phone. He grinned, and winked at me. I grinned back.

Finally, Naru gave me an answer, still wrestling. "I don't know," he grunted, holding Gene's arm behind his back, "Once everyone wakes up and gets their shit together." He let a growl, pushing Gene to the floor and sitting on his back.

"We've had are crap packed since last night, and we're up," Ayako called from the living room, her voice irritated. The anime we'd been watching last night sounded like it was playing on the TV. Jessica's retching echoed back to us.

"Now if we're all alive and well is a different story," Alice called, her voice a little less chirpy than usual. "Gene, I'm going to kill you."

"Why is everyone blaming me? I wasn't the one who left you guys here!" His shout turned into a groan as Naru pulled on his leg.

Alice stepped into the kitchen. Her hair stuck up in every single direction possible. Dark circles darkened the skin beneath her eyes. Her bright blue lipstick was faded and smudged to the side of her mouth. "Whatever," she muttered sullenly, walking over to me, and draping her arms around my neck, "Fooooooood."

"I'm done so you can get some now," I told her, turning off the stove and pulling the bacon from the microwave, "Guys, food it done." The twins on the floor untangled themselves from each other's choke hold and hurried over like a pair of starving wolves.

"Fooooood," the others groaned, sounding like a pack of zombies as they shuffled into the kitchen.

…..

"Hi, Annabeth, sorry we're a little late. We had a bit of a mishap this morning," I explained. I didn't explain how that mishap had been Ayako not making it to my bathroom. It was a good thing thought that the only thing that had been in her stomach had been the alcohol instead of food.

Annabeth waved us off, smiling broadly. "No worries, guys. We're still on shift change and lunch so the guys aren't around right now. You'll just have to hurry and get your stuff into the room I've set aside. You can set everything up after that," she said, already walking away down the hall towards the back of the building, "I can give you a tour later on tonight if you'd like. I won't be able until my shifts done. I've also set up accommodations for you at a nearby hotel." She turned down a corner at a brisk walk only pausing as we came to the end of the corridor. "This is the room. I hope it'll be good enough."

Naru surveyed the room. "This'll be fine." He turned to the rest of us as we were setting out various parcels down. "Hurry up and get the equipment in here."

**There you go! I hope you enjoyed it! I joined the swim team so the chapters might be less frequent.**

**P.S.- Feed the review monster or he will eat your first born child!**


	4. Chapter 4: And It Starts

**Hey there guys, Happy late Valentine's Day. Hope it was better for you than it was for me. I got sick -_- So, today, I was editing/revising my NaNoWriMo novel and started crying when I got to the part where I killed off one of my favorite characters. Is that bad or good? I'm not too sure. Anyway, here's the next chappy! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not/never will own Ghost Hunt! Yay *unenthusiastic***

Chapter 4: And It Starts

"So, these are the bathrooms and showers. The weight room is just through the door past the lockers. Yeah know, if you ever need to work off some steam," Annabeth told us, pushing the door to the female locker room open. She glanced back at Ayako. I giggled, elbowing Yasu gently, and he grinned back at me. "We've got weights, several odd machines, a few punching bags, and a few treadmills. You can use anything you want as long as you use it responsibly."

"So this is what a girls' bathroom looks like, huh?" Yasu said, entering the empty room and looking around. We followed after him, the girls pursing our lips disdainfully at the males' blatant curiosity.

I shook my head, setting the thermometer on sink counter. "I will never understand guys' curiosity for the girls' bathroom. It's not all that great, and honestly, most of them are never this clean." I thought back to some of the public bathroom I'd been in over my nineteen years of life, and shivered in disgust. The thermometer beeped, ready to be picked back up and moved to the benched running in front of the blue, metal lockers.

"Well, as far as I can tell, it's much cleaner than any guys' bathroom. Compared to this, our bathroom looks like it was used by a demon with a bad case of the flu," Gene said, pushing open a stall door and peering in, "Hey! So that's what they're supposed to really look at. I guess they really do look like the ones at home."

Masako and I turned towards him, our mouths hanging open. If that was his reaction, I could only imagine what male public bathrooms looked like, and never wanted to find out. We glanced at each other and cringed in disgust.

"Okay, I'm done here!" I called as the thermometer beeped for the third time. I snatched up the small device, ready to leave the room before the boys could find something else to stare at.

"Alright, onward we go!" Annabeth shouted, raising her arm into the air above her head before dropping it to point at the door. She marched out, the others following in her wake like a row of ducklings.

I shuffled after them slowly, recording the temperature I'd gotten and making sure I hadn't missed any spots. I didn't need Naru, who was currently nursing a hangover, ripping off my head for not doing a good enough job.

I was just getting ready to hurry after them when I heard a soft laugh. Swinging around, I surveyed the vacant bathroom. The showers stood just past the bathrooms, and they were empty as well. "I'm just imagining things," I muttered to myself, turning away. The door was open when the laughter came again, this time around the corner in the locker area.

Shuddering in fear, I turned back slowly, cautiously peering around the corner. "H-hel-l-lo? Is anyone here?" I called softly. There was no one that I could see. Distinctively male laughter came from the last row of lockers, making me jump. It couldn't have been one of the guys, they'd all gone with Annabeth. "Hello? Who's there?" I called, louder and steadier this time as I crept towards the laughing. I was just about to round to corner when Monk stuck his head through the door to the weight room.

I let out a screech of surprise, stumbling and tripping backwards onto the thinly carpeted floor. "Geez, Monk! Give a girl some warning!" I shouted, rubbing my sore rear. I was going to have a huge bruise there for the next few weeks at least if the concrete beneath the carpet had anything to say about it.

"Sorry, didn't realize you were still in here. By the way, what are you still doing in here?" he asked curiously, grinning at me.

"I thought I heard…" I trailed off as I realized that the last row of lockers was completely empty. No man, nor anyone else, stood there. I sighed deeply, running my fingers over my eyes. "I think this hangover is getting to me," I muttered.

"Well, then, let's get the prepping over so we can get to the hotel and sleep them off. Maybe we can get something to eat on the way there," he said, pushing his hands under my arms and lifting me from the ground. He dusted dirt from my skirt before handing me the thermometer, clipboard, and pencil. "Come on."

I sighed again, and nodded. "Yeah, okay." This time, I followed him without pause, only glancing back to make sure there really was no man there. As the door swung shut, I thought I heard that quiet, unsettling laughter again.

…..

"Please come to the bathroom with me," I pleaded with Masako, hopping from foot to foot with the need to pee.

Masako glared at me from behind her sleeve, shaking her head. "What are you, in grade school? You've graduated high school already, you don't need me to hold your hand as you go to the bathroom," she spat, irritation clear in her high and mighty voice.

I ground my teeth. It was bad enough having one Naru who was more irate than usual, but having a second person acting like him when he didn't have a hangover was overkill, not to mention utterly annoying. "But I don't want to go alone," I whined, crossing my legs tightly and rocking back and forth on my heels.

"Then go with Ayako or Alice or Jessica. Stop bothering me," she replied haughtily.

I mimed strangling her from behind. "But they're all helping set up cameras."

"Then you'll just have to wait."

I let out and irritated noise that had been contained in the back of my throat for most of the day. "You know what, Masako? You need to tell Yasu to do a better job at getting you off, because your stuck up, bitchy attitude is really getting old! Maybe if you got laid, you would be more laid back!" I shouted at her even as I was still rocking back and forth. I watched with satisfaction as pink crept up the back of her neck.

"And you need to tell Naru that-" Gene cut her off before she could finish that sentence.

"I'll go with you Mai if you don't mind care," he offered with a gentle smile, coming over to stand beside me.

"Really?" I asked hopefully, looking up at him. He nodded, and I let out a whoop, grabbing his hand and dragging him from the room at a sprint.

"I thought you had to pee!" he called as we rushed through the couple corridors it took to get to the bathrooms.

"I do! That's why I'm running!" I burst through the locker room door, diving into a stall and slamming the door shut before Gene had time to even catch his breath. I let out a long sigh of relief as my bladder finally emptied.

Gene chuckled. "I guess you really did have to pee."

I nodded as I bounced out of the stall. "Yes, I did. That dance wasn't just for show, you know. I've had to pee since six."

Gene raised an eyebrow at me, watching me wash my hands. "Mai, it's almost midnight now. Why did you wait so long?"

I stiffened, pausing with my hands under the running water. "Um…" I started brilliantly, not knowing if I should tell him what had happened earlier, but I'd have to tell someone sooner or later, "Earlier, after you guys had left this locker room and I was in here by myself, I heard a man's laughter. It didn't sound like any of your guys' laughs, and it was quiet, like someone was trying hard to be quiet."

Gene frowned, staring at a patch of water someone had left on the counter. "Isn't that how Annabeth said things got started with her?" he asked slowly as if he didn't want to voice the thought. That wouldn't make the situation disappear though.

I nodded slowly, wrapping my hands into fist around the paper towel I held. "Please, don't tell Naru just yet. He'll take me off the case."

"I have to Mai. It could save your life. The sooner I tell him, the sooner he can deal with it. I'll convince him to keep you on the case though, alright," he said, pulling me into a hug even though I didn't need one. Maybe he was the one who needed the reassurance.

I sighed, but nodded. "Okay." I groaned, burying my face deeper into his chest and wrapping my arms around his waist. "He's going to be so pissed that I didn't tell him."

"Don't worry. He'll cool off after he crawls into bed next to you. You know he can't stay mad at you when he sees you sleeping," Gene reminded me with a grin, patting my head.

I giggled. "Yeah, 'cause I look so lovable and adorable."

The smile slowly faded from Gene's lips. He shook his head, all traces of humor gone from his face. "No, it's because you look so vulnerable, but so strong, and he's reminded of why he fell for you in the first place. He doesn't want to lose you."

My smile dropped, surprise taking the place of my humor. I tightened my arms around his middle. "I'm sorry," I mumbled into his shirt.

"Don't be, just be careful, for both our sakes."

**Well, there you go guys. Sorry again for the late update. As you could probably tell, I was working on a kind of short multi-chapter Hetalia fic for the past week, but now I'm back and ready to work my butt off for you guys.**

**Cookie for the author please? *puppy eyes***


	5. Chapter 5: Camera 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

**P.S.- Once again, unedited because I seem to love writing at the most inappropriate times of the night, but still need to sleep. Enjoy!**

Chapter 5: Camera 3

"Anything interesting happen last night after we cleared out?" Gene stretched his arms high over his head, a yawn falling from his wide open mouths. Alice took the opportunity to jab two fingers sharply into his side. He let out a shout of protest, falling sideway into Annabeth. The pair tumbled over the back of the couch. Annabeth landed on top of Gene's chest, their faces close together. Red rushed across their faces.

"I'm sorry," they both said, scrabbling to get to their feet, but their limbs got tangled, keeping them down.

Alice giggled, leaning against John. "I see a budding romance," she whispered to him in English, grinning widely.

"No!" the pair shouted together finally managing to jump to their feet.

"Don't even go there!" Gene shouted at her, moving quickly away to stand beside Naru who was ignoring the entire fiasco. He cleared his throat, plopping into a swivel chair, trying to act like nothing his just happened. "So, um, about my question…"

"Nothing that I can see so far. A few fluctuations in temperature in the girls' bathroom and the cellblocks, but that's it…" He trailed off, frowning at one of the screens that had just gone snowy. Narrowing his eyes at his equipment, he whipped around catching Monk's eye.

"Oh, come on, man. We just got here. Can't you give us a moment? It's just a little fuzz. Maybe your camera is malfunctioning," Monk suggested before wincing. He'd just given Naru even more reason to send him out. He let out a long sigh. "Alright, alright, I'm going." He pulled himself from his seat, stretching. "So, Mai, care to take a walk with your dear old Dad?" he asked, grinning at me.

"Sure," I said, pushing off the wall. Before I could take even two steps, Naru's voice stopped me.

"No, you can take Alice," he said.

"But I don't wanna," Alice whined, leaning back into John. Her face went stony, a clear sign that she wasn't going to budge.

"Then Jessica."

Jessica shook her head from her place beside the door. "Not if you want me to do that research you asked me to do that night." She glanced my way, winking mischievously and grinning.

I turned a smug smile towards my boyfriend. "See? Nobody wants to go except me, so I'm going," I decided, crossing my arms stubbornly. My eyes flicked to Gene standing behind Naru who was shaking his head at me.

'Remember what we talked about last night,' he mouthed. I did remember, but that didn't mean I was going to let Naru keep me prisoner in Base for the deration of the case. That just didn't appeal to me.

"Don't worry, Naru-bou. I'll take good care of your girl here. Nothing is going to hurt her while I'm around," Monk said confidently, slinging a protective arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side.

Naru's glare pierced us as easily as a knife through butter, but in the end, he sighed. "Take readings of the magnetic field. See if anything has changed since last night. It's camera three," he finally ordered, turning his back on the pair, his mood slowly souring, not that it had been any good to begin with that morning. Being rudely awakened by the shrill ringing of the phone can do that to a person.

I stared longingly at his back as I collected the things I needed. Pausing just in the doorway, I took one last over my shoulder at him. He was leaning on his hands against the table, his head hanging to stare at the table. Gene whispered to him, glancing to me and waving me away with a gentle smile. Guilt curling in my stomach, I ran after Monk.

…..

"So, how are you and Naru doing?" Monk asked too casually as we made our way towards the camera Naru had told us to check on. It was the one in the cellblocks where they were currently holding two men and a woman. We were passing through one of the few halls that didn't have a camera.

I was silent for a long moment, considering my answer. Instead of giving him a long, drawn out speech, I simply said, "Good."

Monk glanced towards me, concern knitting his brows together. "The amount of time it took you to answer tells me that that was a lie."

I shook my head, clutching the clipboard and little EMF detector to my chest. "No, I wasn't lying, but ever since the night I had the dream about this place, at least I'm pretty sure it was this place, he's been a bit weary, more protective than usual. It's getting on my nerves a bit, but I feel like whenever I fight him on something that was supposed to be 'in my best interest' I hurt him. I don't like the feeling," I explained. So much for not giving him a long, drawn out answer.

"Well, if we're being honest, I'm sure it does," Monk replied. Guilt exploded in my veins, and I dropped my head against the clipboard with a groan. "He's just trying to protect you, but I can see why it can get annoying at times. Maybe you should just shove away your pride sometimes and concede to his authority."

I grinned up at him from where my face was still hidden. "Aren't we using big words today? I didn't know you knew all those words," I teased, "Anyway, you're one to talk, look at you and Ayako. You can't keep a conversation civil for more than ten minutes."

"Hey, that's at least more than when we first met. Baby steps and progress," he said, grinning back, "And look at you and Naru. You two used to be at odds almost twenty-four seven, now we can barely pry you two apart. It'll get better just like everything always does." He ruffled my hair affectionately.

I grabbed for his hand, catching it, but not releasing it. "Thanks, Monk." I smiled up at him, giving his a one-armed hug.

"Don't mention it, that's what dads are here for right?" he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, and anchoring me to his side, "So, what do you say about checking on that camera and hustling back to Base? We'll grab tea and coffee for everyone on the way back."

"Okay!" I called, a new bounce my step. We came upon the camera only moments later. One of the cords had been pulled from its plug. We stared at it in confusion for a long moment. "I'll check the EMF anyway, just in case," I whispered, the need for quiet overtaking me. Flipping on the little device in my hands, I walked cautiously away from Monk, taking care to stay a good distance from the bars. That didn't stop the hand that shot out and latched onto my wrist though. I let out a screech of terror, jerking back, but the hand stayed in place.

"Hey, there girly, nice to see you around again," the gruff, English accented voice of the one female in the cells murmured, leering at me. She was a foreigner with a warrant on her head. She smiled suggestively, pulling me closer. "Have you finally decided to take up my offer?" she asked, licking her lips and looking me up and down. Even from as far away at I was, I could smell her rancid breath.

I forced down my gag reflex. "G-get off of me, I-I d-don't want you touching me," I stuttered, the edge to my voice lost in my fear.

"Hey, when you get done with her, Sakura, I want a turn," one of the men farther down called, cackling along with the second man.

I tried wrenching my wrist away, fear spiking through me, but the woman only held on tighter. My wrist felt like it was being crushed under the woman's strength. I flinched as my bones rubbed together.

Sakura cackled with the men. "No, this one is mine boys. You can have one of the other pretty little things, after I'm done with them of course," she called back.

"Hey!" Monk shouted angrily, swatting away the woman's hand as if it were a mere mosquito, "She told you not to touch her. Don't lay another hand on her." He glared down at her, towering high over her tiny four feet eleven inches.

The woman only grinned at him, showing him teeth in better condition than I'd expected. "And what are you going to do if I don't?" she taunted, threading her arms through the bars, and letting them flop forward. She pressed her slight body against the bars, giving Monk a good view of the length of her body seeing as she was only wearing her underwear. The pretty body she wore didn't seem like it should belong to such a disturbing voice. "I hope it'll make me scream."

Monk glared at her, pushing me away further down the hall. "Come on, Mai. Let's get this done fast and get out of here," he muttered, not moving his eyes from the woman until we came to the next occupied cell.

The men, mixture ethnicities it seemed, jeered at us, reaching for me as we passed and calling nasty things at us. I ignored them as best I could, concentrating on the small green light that shone brightly.

"Anything?" Monk asked once we had passed the two men and I was safely out of reach of them.

I shook my head. We walked until we came to the dead end. Sighing, we turned and the lights pegged. I gasped, pausing mid turn. I was facing an empty cell, the EMF pointing towards it. Experimentally, I moved just a little to the left. The lights died. I moved back to the middle and the pegged. I moved to the right this time, and they died once more.

I glanced up at Monk questioningly, but he wasn't looking at me. He was staring into the cell, eyes wide as saucers. On the white painted brick wall, a message was scrawled in deep crimson.

"Welcome to my playground."

**Well, there you go. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was actually completely improvised seeing as I had no idea what I was going to do for it. Completely improvised. Anyway, drop an author a cookie with you? I'm suffering from chocolate withdrawals.**


	6. Chapter 6: Spooked

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt**

**Once again, unedited because even though I got this chapter up earlier than usual, I've got to wake up at 5 a.m. to go to swim practice. Yay! -_-**

Chapter 6: Spooked

We made it back to Base in record time. Monk and I burst through the door, tumbling over each other so that I landed on Monk's chest. Our breath came fast, and sweat dripped down my back uncomfortably.

"What are you two doing?" Naru asked sternly, glaring at us from her perch on the table with the monitors, his foot propped on a chair so it made one knee higher than the other. A laptop rested against the higher knee. His eyes skirted over us, checking for any injuries. When he reached my wrist, he frowned and set the laptop aside. "What happened?"

Daniel pulled me off of Monk, setting me gently on my feet. "You okay?" he asked, taking my face between his hands. He stared into my eyes trying to gauge if anything deep within me had been irreversibly altered.

I pulled his hands away from my face. "I'm fine," I told him, my voice sounding far away, "Just a little shaken." I released his hands, seeing Naru approach me from my periphery vision. When he was close enough, I flung my arms around his waist.

"What happened?" Naru shot sternly at Monk, wrapping his arms protectively around me, "What happened to her wrist?" Anger washed off him in waves, filling the room with the slight crackle of electricity.

Gene stepped up behind Naru, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Noll, you're short-circuiting the equipment." The electricity instantly died down, but the hint was still there.

Monk took a deep breath, letting Yasu and John pull him up from the floor before starting. "We went down to the cellblocks, where camera 3 is. We found that someone had come by and unplugged one of the wires," he began, speaking quickly so none of the others, especially Naru had time to cut him off, "Mai decided to do the EMF reading while I fixed the camera. Well, the female prisoner grabbed onto her wrist and wouldn't let go. I got her off, and we went to finish the EMF reading. We were getting nothing until Mai pointed it at the last cell, then it was pegged. On the wall, someone had written the words 'welcome to my playground' in dark red paint. It almost looked like blood." He gasped, sucking in air after telling the whole thing in one long breath.

The others stared at Monk for a long moment, eyebrows raised. They were trying to decipher what he'd just said. Eventually, they figured it out and swore quietly. Annabeth ran her hand through her hair in agitation, staring at her boots. The others started chattering, pulling up theory after theory.

Naru glanced down at me, running his fingers through my short locks. "Is that what has you spooked?" he asked in a low voice so that I could only hear him.

I shook my head, leaving my face pressed in his shirt. "I'm sorry," I murmured against the soft material, "Don't let me bully you into letting me go anywhere again on this case. Especially if it's over in the cellblocks." I clutched the back of his shirt in my fists, needing to hold into something tightly.

Naru chuckled quietly, pulling me even closer. "That works for me just fine."

"Do you need to keep that message up there, Mr. Shibuya?" Annabeth asked, finally glancing up from the floor, "I need to get it washed down before my superiors come in for work. Plus, I need to have a talk with the prisoners about proper etiquette." A frown pulled down the corners of her lips, making her look severe and dangerous.

"We just need a picture. Yasu, go with Ms. Oshiro and take the picture," Naru ordered, pulling me towards the couch. He plopped down, letting me curl up on his lap. I may have been making a big deal out of nothing, freaking out because someone had grabbed my wrist, but did I care? No, not really.

"Yes, sir!" Yasu called, saluting our great narcissist before grabbing up a camera. He was getting ready to follow Annabeth out when Gene stopped him.

"Oh, Yasu, can I do that?" he asked, hurrying over to the older male.

Yasu pursed his lips, considering. He glanced between Gene and Annebeth, a slow grin curving up the corners of his mouth. "Sure, just be careful alright. We don't need anyone screaming today." He held the camera out for Gene.

Both Gene's and Annabeth's cheeks flared red, his insinuation in no way lost on either of them. Gene snatched the camera from Yasu's grip, glaring Naru's icy glare at him. "You're disgusting, you know that?" he asked scathingly, turning to leave before he could hear the other's answer.

Yasu just stuck his head out the door, and called after them, "It's a talent. You'll find I have very many talents." He pulled back at a pen flew point blank for his forehead. It clattered harmlessly against the wood of the hall. He chuckled, seating himself on the arm of one of the chairs.

I peeked up at Naru, catching his eye. "I think Gene has a crush on Annabeth," I whispered to him.

"I think you're right," he returned, smirking.

I could already see the wheels turning in his head, formulating pranks he could easily pull on his twin and embarrass him in front of Annabeth. "Hey, don't be mean to him! No pranks," I told him, narrowing my eyes.

He looked down at me innocently. "What pranks? I'm not thinking of any pranks." The small smile that tugged at his lips told the truth.

"If you ruin this for him, I'm kicking you out of my house and bed for a month," I threatened, "I don't think Lin and Madoka, with their new baby, would be very appreciative of you sleeping on their couch."

"No, we wouldn't," Lin confirmed in a flat voice, glancing over at the two of us, "I agree with Mai, don't do anything that'll ruin this for your twin."

Naru rolled his eyes, leaning back into the couch. "I wasn't going to do anything too terrible," he commented, plucking at a strand of my hair with too much interest.

"You, Mr. Narcissist, are a terrible person," I told him. I only received a wider grin in return.

Sighing, I pushed myself out of his arms despite his attempt to keep me pressed against him. "Hey, Jessica, are you still going to go do that research?" I asked, turning to her, "I need to get out of this place. It's only the second day, and I'm already going nuts."

"Sure," she said happily, extracting herself from her own cage of arms constructed by a certain man named Daniel. He pouted, looking up at her sullenly, but she was paying him no mind. "Come on, Yasu. Time to get to work."

"To the library!" Yasu shouted, jumping from his perch and nearly overturning Masako. She glared up at him, but her frown softened as her swooped down to give her a peck on the lips. "Be back soon. Don't do anything rash. Don't get into too much trouble. Listen to Mama Lin and Papa Naru. Watch for embarrassing moments, and then tell me all about them when we get back."

She laughed softly behind her sleeve, pulling him into another, longer kiss. "Alright, you be careful as well," she told him when they finally pulled apart.

We all rolled our eyes at the couple. They were the worst of all of us. It was kind of annoying to watch them at time, but then I just had to remember that I had someone I could do the same thing with, and get an even bigger reaction out of the rest of the group.

As soon as the thought entered my head, a pair of arms swooped down around me, pulling me back into a very familiar chest. I grinned as Naru turned me towards him, pressing his lips hungrily against mine. He pulled back, an apologetic smirk curling across his lips. "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself," he said as an excuse.

Howls and wolf whistles echoed from our surrounding teammates. "Get a room!" Yasu called, grinning from ear to ear.

That only set Monk off. "No! They will not get a room! Not on my watch!" he shouted, shooting to his feet. Ayako glanced up at the carnage only to return her eyes to the magazine open across her knees with a heavy sigh of exasperation.

Yasu instantly retorted with something that would aggravate the older male even more. "Come now, everyone. Let's not fight," John tried unsuccessfully to sooth the rowdy pair, only to have Jessica and Daemon jump in with their own snarky comments, and Alice right behind them. "Alice, please." His quiet voice was easily drowned out by the cacophony of the others around him.

It was only until a screech of, "Son of a bitch! Not again!" in English ripped through the building that the shouting subsided. We all stared around, confusion painted on our faces.

"Did that sound like Annabeth to anyone else?" Alice asked, sticking out her electric blue bottom lip in consideration, "I think she's pissed."

"I wonder why," Ayako mused, folding her magazine into her purse, and pulling herself to her feet. She started out the door at a leisurely pace.

"Where are you going?" Monk asked, his eyebrows pulling even tighter together than before.

Ayako gave him a look that blatantly said he was an idiot. "Where do you think? I'm going to go see why Annabeth just cursed at the top of her lungs." With that, she turned her back on the rest of us and turned down the hall. We all glanced at each other, shrugged, and hurried after her.

**Yay! Sixth chapter! Can you guys guess what I did? Maybe, maybe not. Haha, anyway, I hoped you liked this chapter and I probably see you tomorrow with the next one.**

**P.S.- It's storming here! =D**


	7. Chapter 7: Disappearing Act

**So, you guys remember that swim practice I told you I had early in the morning? Yeah, I didn't go to that. I ended up sleeping past my alarm, haha. Oh well.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

Chapter 7: Disappearing Act

"What's the matter?" John asked as we hurried up behind Ayako's, Naru's, and Lin's long strides. Even Monk, who had longer legs than at least two of them, was happing having a hard time keeping up. We breathed heavily, hunching over to drop our hands on our knees.

"You guys are really out of shape," Gene observed from his position beside Annabeth who was spilling an assortment of English curse words, snarling every few words and running her hands through her hair.

"I can't fucking believe this! Son of a whore! Fuck everything!" she shouted, sending a kick flying into the bars of a cell that appeared to be empty. She pulled at her long, chestnut hair that had fallen out of its ponytail, her hairband forgotten on the floor.

I went over to her, stretching out a gentle hand. "Hey, what's the matter? What happened?" I asked, stopping her in her tracks as I clamped a hand down on her shoulder.

Without saying a word, she pointed to the empty cell in front of us, her face in her other hand. Scrawled on the wall in still drying, dripping red paint was the message, 'Let's play hide-n-seek.' The cell, as I'd first realized, was indeed empty.

"I don't understand. What's so wrong with that?" I asked, confusion painting my tone.

From down the hall, the two men started yelling at me. "Hey, it's that girly from earlier!" one shouted to the other. They pressed against their bars, trying to get a better glimpse of me. "Come here, girly, and let us show you how a real man handles women," the same man called, letting out a wolf whistle and a cackle.

I blushed hard, ducking behind Lin seeing as he was the tallest of the group. The team turned en masse to glare stonily at the two men. That did nothing to deter them. Instead, they also took notice of Masako who hid behind Yasu at their catcalls.

Naru was taking his first threatening steps towards the men when something they said brought him up short.

"Yeah, now that Sakura's gone, we won't have to share with her," the second man laughed to the other, sticking out his hand for the other to give him a high-five.

"Dude, score!" the first man shouted exuberantly.

Without hesitation this time, Naru marched down to the other men, pulling them sharply against the bars by the fronts of their shirts. I jogged after him, glancing around his back to watch the interrogation and ask some of my own questions. "What are you talking about?" he asked sternly, his voice just shy of being threatening.

"S-Sakura j-just up and d-disappeared like fifteen minutes ago. We figured she found out a way to escape," the second man stuttered, his hands raised defensively.

"Did you hear her say anything? Or anyone else say something? Did you hear anything?" I asked, still only peeking out from behind Naru. He glanced back at me, but quickly returned his eyes to the men he was holding up.

The first man held the gall to leer down at me. "I'll tell you if you wrap those pretty little lips of yours around my-" He was cut off sharply as Naru slammed him against the bars again. His face slapped painfully into the metal, clanging loudly against them.

"Don't you dare talk to her like that. Answer the questions," he growled, his eyes turning an even darker shade of back than usual with his anger. His eyes narrowed threateningly, the edge slipping easily into his voice. "I'll will break your legs and make you female if you continue-"

It was Naru's turn to be cut off. "No! No!" the second man shouted, fear edging into his voice, "She didn't say anything. She just stopped in the middle of her sentence. Then there was some scuffling, and we didn't hear her again. There was a kind of dripping sound, and then everything was quiet. There was no noise until Officer Oshiro and that guy came in. Please don't hurt us." The first man glared daggers at him, but didn't say anything.

I glanced back to the cell Annebeth was glaring into. I realized at that moment that the cell had been Sakura's. My eyes went wide. "She's gone? Just like that?" I murmured, shock tingeing my words.

Naru, staring over shoulder at me, slammed the men against the bars again before letting their shirt fronts go. The men scrambled back, throwing themselves into the back walls of their cells. "I-if w-we ever g-get out of h-here, we'll h-hunt you d-down and beat the shit out of you!" the first man called as we walked back towards the team.

Annabeth, her temper clearly burning, turned from the empty cell and stomped down to the pair that was occupied. The men squeaked, but she didn't even blink. "You guys go back to your Base. I have some issues I must discuss with these two, and some manners to teach," she called back, her voice calmer than her shaking frame portrayed.

We all watched her cautiously, hesitant to leave her alone. "Did you get pictures of both messages?" Naru asked, returning back to business.

Gene nodded, holding out the camera to him. Naru took it, flipping through the pictures on the digital screen. "I'll stay with her and make sure she doesn't kill these two," he offered, grinning.

"Fine. Ayako, stay here and clean the mess of the walls," Naru ordered, turning back the way we'd come, starting to walk away.

"What? Why do I have to do it?" Ayako shouted indignantly, turning on the younger male to glare at him, "Do you have a grudge against me or something?" She dropped her hands onto her scarlet clothed hips, looking like a mother disciplining her child.

"Because unlike the others, you don't have anything to do," he relied from down the hall.

"Yes, I do! You were going to have me walk around with Masako and see if we could pick anything up!"

"Fine, then Masako, you stay as well. Once the messages are cleaned up, you can go do that." The finality in his voice left no room for negotiation.

Masako turned her glare on the other female, muttering, "You just had to go and open your big mouth didn't you?" Ayako flipped her the bird. I grinned at the two, spinning away from then and running after Naru.

…..

"So, you still want to head to the library to do that research?" Jessica asked with a sigh as we tromped back into Base, "Maybe we can get away from this craziness. Honestly, only the second day and already we have someone who's disappeared. What's next?"

I shook my head vigorously, stopping her words. "Don't even say it because if you do, it'll probably happen," I warned, leaning against the couch behind where Naru stared at the monitors. "Just wait, I'm sure it will get a lot worse. Let's not make it worse, huh?"

Jessica laughed. "Sure thing. I'll keep my lips zipped about that kind of thing, but anyways, the library…"

"Oh! Oh yeah! Sure, let's get going before something else happens, and we get stuck here," I said, pushing to my feet. I jumped over to Naru, wrapping my arms around his middle. "Be careful while I'm gone. Don't get into trouble," I told him, only half joking.

He turned towards me, wrapping me in his arms. "I should be telling you that," he murmured into my hair.

I smiled and laughed lightly, squeezing him back. "I will. I promise." He let me go with a small nod.

"Don't worry, Naru. We'll take care of her. At least I will," Jessica promised, pulling me in against her side. She smiled reassuringly, and this time, Naru gave her a nod before turning back to the monitors.

**Yay! The seventh chapter! This is the fastest I've ever moved through a story. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I don't remember what I was going to do in the first place. I guess we'll just have to see how things go, won't we :P Drop an author a review huh? They feed my soul and boost my self-esteem (does that sound self-centered? I can't tell) Anyway, see you guys on the next chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8: Tornado

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

Chapter 8: Tornado

Hours later, when we finally returned to the police station, we found the Base in disarray. The smile I'd been sporting from our little excursion dropped from my face as I took in the scene. The racks holding the screens had been pushed over. Anything on the tables had been thrown to the floor, including several laptops, and every single cord connecting the monitors to the other equipment had been ripped from their port leaving some without their metal and plastic heads. The team stood all in the middle of the disaster, staring around at the destroyed room. Naru was unimaginably livid.

"What happened?" Jessica asked before the question could spill from my mouth, moving to slowly lift the shelves back up from their place on the floor. The cords slithered to the hardwood, their heads tanging quietly against the metal. She hadn't addressed the question to anyone in particular allowing Naru to seethe silently.

"Well, let's just give the short version. We left to go check on the guys in the cellblocks who had started screaming for no reason, and when we came back, the room was like this," Daniel explained simply, rubbing hard against his forehead.

Yasu and I entered the room finally, helping with the slow moving cleaning. I picked up a screen gently, checking for any damage. Luckily, the one I held hadn't been cracked or hurt, but some of the others one hadn't been so lucky. Masako pulled one such screen into her arms, running feather-light fingers over the cracked black surface of the screen.

"Naru, what would you like us to do with the broken equipment?" she asked quietly, trying to avoid any unnecessary wrath.

He glanced over at her, his eyes hard and full of anger, but surprisingly he didn't allow that to leak into his voice. "Just put it into a box. We'll take them back to the hotel."

"Alright," she murmured, far away in her own thoughts. She shuffled over to an empty box, laying the broken monitor inside as if it were a newborn baby. Yasu watched her curiously, cocking his head at a soft angle to watch her movements.

I bumped him lightly with my elbow, jerking my head towards Masako. "What do you think is up with her?" I asked just because I had no ideas of my own. He had only been here just as long as Jessica and me, but he was much more observant than either of us.

He shook his head, his eyes still trained on her even though he bent over to pick up a monitor. He glanced down at its screen, taking notice of the large crack decorating its front, and took that chance to waddle over to Masako. She still stood by the box, staring into it unseeingly.

I moved away from my lonely spot in the middle of the floor to where Jessica was plugging wires into several of the still intact screens. She glanced to me, smiling wryly, before returning her eyes to her work. "Do you think what we found will help the case?" I asked her, pushing the screen in my arms onto the lowest shelf.

She cast a cursory glance around the room, jumping from the pairs of quietly chattering, tired group members. "After the day they've specifically probably had, I hope so. Speaking of which… Daniel, are you sure those men were screaming for no reason?" She dropped to a knee, looking under the table where Daniel was spending his time shoving plugs into sockets. "You're going to cause a fire with all those plugs in one strip."

Daniel sighed loudly, dropping his head. "Please, don't say that. I don't want to come back tomorrow morning to something like that."

"Oh, right, sorry." She grinned, tapping her temple with her knuckle. "I'll try not to say things like that."

"Right," he replied skeptically, shaking his head, "Anyway, to answer your question, I don't think they were screaming for 'no reason' per say." He made air quotes when he said the words "no reason", rolling his eyes. "When we got there, they looked like their faces had been beat against the wall, which might actually be possible seeing as we found some of their blood splatters on the walls."

"Really?" I asked in surprise, grabbing a handful of wires from the floor, starting to shove them back into their sockets.

"Yeah, they were muttering something about the boss being back, and that they'd never hit on any girl ever again. Nonsense is what I heard," he muttered gruffly.

Jessica blinked several times at his tone. Moving under the table, she crouched beside him, wrapping a strong arm around his shoulders. "Hey, what's the matter? Did something happen while we were away that I should know about? Are you hurt, or did you just get yelled at?" she asked, bumping through shoulders together.

He shook his head, but didn't elaborate.

"You know, conversations go much smoother if the other party participates as well," she prompted, "I'll make you talk one way or another."

Before Jessica really started to get into her interrogation techniques, I asked, "Do you know where Gene is? I figured Annabeth would still be working, but where did Gene run off to?" I glanced around the room once more, taking in the haggard appearance of my team members. Even Naru looked warn out. He had the laptops set up in a row, making sure they were all still working properly.

Daniel smirked. "Oh, he's off 'helping' Annabeth again." Again with the air quotes. "Honestly, I think he's really trying to get into her pants."

I shook my head vigorously. Despite the fact that I knew Gene was completely, fully male, I'd never be able to think of him as acting that way. "No, I think he genuinely enjoys spending time with her. I'm sure he has a crush on her, but I'm sure his intentions are pure."

"Whose intentions are pure? Who are we talking about over here, hm?" Annabeth suddenly asked behind us, startling us so bad that we jumped, slamming out her heads into the underside of the table. We groaned, clutching at our head and curling in on ourselves. The team's heads snapped towards us, laughter spilling from almost every mouth including Gene's, but excluding his twin's.

I jolted out from beneath the table, rubbing at my throbbing skull. "No one, no one at all," I muttered irritably.

"Aw, come now, don't be like that. Tell us," Gene coaxed, wrapping a warm arm around my shoulders and leaning heavily into me, "By the way, what happened here?" He looked around the room, bemusement coloring his tone and pulling at his features.

"I'm going to take a guess and say a freak tornado blew through," Annabeth replied from her crouch on the floor.

The other members of the group groaned. Ayako was the one to answer. "Close, but no cookie."

"If you all would stop talking and clean this mess up, we'll be able to get back to the hotel," Naru shot at the group, making them flinch. He leaned over one of the computers, Lin's by the look of it and the way Lin was moping around the room, that had refused to turn on from the black screen.

"Yes, sir," we all called weekly back, even the usual verve in Yasu's voice missing. Over the next our, the Base was mostly silent, whispers passing from member to member occasionally. Naru glared stonily at the computer monitors of the laptops, his frame vibrating with his unresolved anger. Finally, the Base was tidier than it had been when we'd first set up.

"We can go to the hotel now," I groaned, stretching my arms as far as they could go over my head.

"At least two people need to stay behind and watch base," Naru said, pushing the laptop screens down more gently than anyone had been expecting.

No body spoke up to volunteer. Finally, both Annabeth and Gene sighed. "I'll stay," they offered in unison. They glanced towards each other and laughed lightly.

"I've got reports to write up," Annabeth explained, "If you don't care."

"That's fine," Naru replied and without a backward glance, left Base. The rest of us followed after him quickly, waving back to the pair who had stayed behind.

**Well, there you go. So, it's midnight now, and I have school tomorrow and I have to retake the written portion of the driver's test so, night guys. See you later today or tomorrow.**


	9. Chapter 9: Just One Isn't Enough

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Chapter 9: Just One Isn't Enough

_There was no transition as my dream started up. One moment, I was closing my eyes to sleep, and the next, I was standing outside a cell, like the ones at the police station. Looking at it more closely, it looked exactly like the cell where we'd found the first message._

_A man, the man from my first dream, stared down the hall from between the bars. His hands were wrapped tightly around the bars. His carrot orange hair stuck out in every direction on his head, the color only accented by the royal purple of his jumpsuit. "Hello~," he called in a singsong tone, watching as a woman came around the corner._

_A woman wearing the police uniform entered the hall, carrying a tray of food. She glared daggers at the man, her jaw tightening as she noticed him watching her. She didn't greet him, moving as slowly as possible, taking as much time as she could to get to the man. She stopped in front of his cell just out of his reach._

"_Is that for me?" he asked, eyeing the tray of food. It was obviously only enough to keep him from dying, but not enough for him to gain any strength._

_Once again, the woman didn't answer. Instead, she pressed her back against the wall and let herself slide to the floor. She picked up the chopsticks almost tauntingly, picking up some of the right in a small plastic bowl, and slowly raising it to her mouth. The man's stomach growled audibly as the food disappeared between her lips._

_A satisfied smirk pulled at the woman's lips as she continued to eat, and the man's stomach continued to complain. By the slightly sunken look to his cheeks, it was obvious that he hadn't been fed in several days. When was done, she simply set the tray down beside her._

"_Why do you have to do that? It's so unfair. I'm hungry," the man whined, dropping his chin down to rest on the bar that ran across the rest._

"_Why should I feed you?" the woman snapped, scowling._

_The man blinked as if she should already know the answer. "Because I'm your prisoner."_

"_So? What does that have to do with anything?"_

"_You're supposed to keep me alive."_

_The woman's scowl deepened, turning into something that I didn't think was even possible. "Why should I keep you alive when you've killed so many women? Why should you get to live while you didn't let my baby sister live? Why? Answer me that."_

"_W-well," the man stuttered, squirming uncomfortably at the woman's angry questions, "Y-you'll get in t-trouble if I-I die because you didn't feed me."_

_The woman shrugged, his answer having affected her in no way. "So? Why should I care? At least you'd be getting what you deserve. At least you wouldn't be able to appeal against the death penalty again." Her tone was bitter, outraged. She glared flaming, poison tipped daggers at the man as if she were hoping just to kill him with her glare._

_The man's mouth opened and closed as if he were a fish out of water, no sound leaving his lips. His eyes watched her hand slowly as she stroked the butt of her gun almost lovingly, dragging her fingers along its hard, rounded edges. "Maybe, I should just kill you right now," she murmured to herself, her eyes traveling to caress her Glock held snuggly in her leather holster._

"_N-no, y-you can't!" the man cried, jumping back from the bars to press his back against the wall of his cell._

_The woman glanced up at him, her eyes cold. "Oh, can't I?" She unclipped her holster with an audible click, withdrawing her Glock with a quiet hiss of metal against leather. She glanced down at the weapon, her hands cupping the handle familiarly. She checked the chamber for a bullet before letting it snap back into place._

"_You can't! It's unethical. You'll get in serious trouble. They put you to death!" the man pleaded, pulling in on himself and covering his head with his arms. "Please, don't kill me!"_

"_It's much too late to plead for my mercy. You should have never killed my baby sister, any of those women, if you wanted to live," she replied, her voice flat, emotionless. Her eyes were just as emotionless as her arms rose, and she took aim. She breathed once, twice, and then the shattering crack of a gunshot echoed through the halls._

_The woman stared unfeeling at the mess of blood and tissue splattered against the back wall. It created a flowing crimson mosaic that dripped down the white-painted bricks._

_I stared wide-eyed at the scene, my hands shaking violently. Running footsteps echoed down the hall, one voice sticking out and familiar. "Hey! What happened?" Annabeth called, receiving an answer from a male._

_I glanced to the woman wondering what her next move would be, my breath catching in my throat as she raised the gun to her temple. "Baby sister, I'll be with you soon," she murmured, letting her eyes slip closed._

"_No!" I screeched as Annabeth, about two years younger, rounded the corner and the woman squeezed the trigger. Annabeth's shout echoed mine, and I was pulled into reality._

…..

"Mai, come on, we're leaving," Naru said, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. I sat at a table at the hotel as the others finished through continental breakfast. He stood over me protectively, watching my struggle to pull my forehead from the cool plastic surface of the table.

I winced as the harsh fluorescent lights overhead assaulted my eyes. A savage headache beat against the inside of my skull, taking revenge for having been squashed the other day when we'd been drinking. Even if it had been a hangover, it had been a welcome relief from the headache from hell. Maybe it was better classified as a migraine now. "Okay," I mumbled, pushing myself up from my chair with effort. "Can I just stay at the hotel and sleep?"

Naru shook his head, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "No, you can take a nap at the station though." He brushed a kiss across my temple, but unlike the time I'd fallen asleep on the couch, the pain didn't dull. The heat from his skin soothed the throb in that one temple, but the pain refused to dissipate.

"That's a long way away," I mumbled, not even making an effort to fight him as he pulled me towards the doors.

Chairs scrapped noisily across the floor, the tapping of shoes echoing against the tiles and following us out. "Hey, Mai," Daniel said, sliding an arm around my waist and ignoring Naru's death glare, "What's the matter? Did T.O.M come to visit?" His tone was joking, but real concern lingered below the surface.

I shook my head, leaning into the familiar warmth of my longtime friend. "My head is killing me," I said, squinting as the vibrations from my vocal cords traveled up and sent new waves of pain through my head, "I don't know what to do about it."

"Maybe Naru-bou should just let you sleep the day away. You're probably getting sick. Maybe that'll help," Monk said, ruffling my hair gently.

Ayako came up behind him, giving him a hard brain duster. He pitched forward past Daniel and me, breaking his hold on my waist. "Don't say that you idiot," she reprimanded. Her tone softened as she addressed me. "I can check you out when we get to the station and make sure you really aren't getting sick. That would suck."

I nodded gratefully, being careful not to stare at her flaming red locks too long. The color had the pain behind my eyes increasing. Masako swiftly took Daniel's place, sliding her arm through mine. I glanced at her in surprise, but smiled and leaned into her.

"Did you have another dream?" she asked quietly so only I could hear her. We ignored the others as they bickered around us. Her eyes were narrowed as if she were suffering from the same migraine I was.

I nodded, pushing down the surprise the rose higher in my chest. "How did you know?"

"Yesterday, I had a vision while we were walking around. It wasn't enough to make me collapse, but I saw enough. When I came back, realizing that we were still walking, I had a pounding headache that was worse than a hangover. I figured the same thing had happened to you," she explained with a shrug.

"Is that why you were so quiet yesterday?" I asked. She nodded. "Let's hope this case ends quickly."

"Somehow, I have the feeling we've just hit the tip of the iceberg," she murmured ominously.

**There you go! Hope that was an interesting enough chapter. I don't know if I'll be able to get the next chapter up tomorrow, I've got a swim meet from 9am-1pm, so we'll see. Review for the starving author! Please and thank you! :D**


	10. Chapter 10: Authority

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Chapter 10: Authority

"What happened this time?" Naru snarled as we stared at the mess that was the Base. The coffee table that had been set in the middle of the room had been flipped over. Papers were scattered across the entire floor. The equipment was luckily still on the shelves, but the monitors were covered in silly string. The couches and chair were soaked with what I figured was water. Forgotten cups of coffee lay untouched on the end of the equipment table. A bucket of steaming water with rags hanging over the edge dangled from Annabeth's hand.

Annabeth and Gene were in similar disorder. Silly string was stuck in Annabeth's chestnut hair, tangling the coppery strands that were loose from their usual ponytail. The silly string clung to Gene's and her clothing, making colorful patterns across the dark fabrics.

"Well, you see," Gene began, running a hand through his hair, but Annabeth cut him off.

A smile tugged at the corners of her scowl, threatening to overtake the downturned lips. "My partner and the other guys thought it'd be funny to come in here when Gene and I were half asleep, and start spraying us with silly string and water. I ended up overturning the table at them on instinct. The battle kind of just ended," she explained.

Before he could blow up on the indifferent pair, Naru swung around to face Yasu, Jessica, and me. "What did you find yesterday?" he asked, holding out his hand for any papers that we had printed off.

Yasu pulled a stack of papers from his backpack, handing them to our seething leader. "Well, to start off, they've only had around a hundred prisoners since the prison was established around eighty or ninety years ago. Those prisoners include the three that are here now, or I guess, two at this point," he started, moving past Naru deeper into the room. We all followed after him, bending down to scoop up papers. "I only included the profiles of the most suspicious prisoners, and summarized the profiles of the rest. Since Annabeth didn't tell us how long these things have been going on, I couldn't narrow it down by years." He shrugged, shuffling the papers in his arms.

Annabeth flinched at the mention of her name, but no one seemed to notice except for me. I frowned, thinking back to the dream I'd had that night. I hadn't told Naru about it yet. Maybe it would be better if I held off on telling him that little piece of information.

"How many did you narrow it to?" Naru asked, flipping through the papers. He seemed to be counting the profiles, but was probably just making a show for it. It was too early in the morning to do much else.

"Hm, I think it was to about ten, give or take a few. They're mostly men, but there are a few women in there too. I didn't know if they'd be relevant or not. Most of the women were abducted at some point," Yasu replied, dropping the papers in his arms on the equipment table.

Monk flipped the coffee table over, setting it down on the marks its feet had made. "Why have there only been a hundred prisoners if the station had been here for ninety years?" he asked, wiping the silly string gripping the table off with a damp cloth.

"Well, the cells here are only used if there is no other option. The amount of prisoners needing to be held had increased steadily over the past couple years." Yasu rummaged under the couch, and pulled out a half full can of silly string. He smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at me, and jerking his chin towards Monk then Naru.

I shook my head vigorously, but was trying so hard to keep down the laughter that threatened to escape my mouth. My shoulder shook with the contained giggles as Yasu inconspicuously slipped the spray can into his backpack.

I breathed deeply, trying to find the will to calm my laughter. "I think we should only be looking at the last maybe five years at most," I suggested, putting my papers in order before setting them beside Yasu's discarded stack.

Ayako bumped me out of the way with her hip, running a damp cloth over the monitors. She grinned at me before asking her question. "Why only go back five years? Shouldn't we be going back as far as we can?"

"It's just a feeling I have," I mumbled, my eyes flicking to Annabeth who had her back to me. She glanced over her shoulder, catching my eye, before glancing away quickly.

"A feeling," Ayako scoffed, moving to drop her rag in the bucket.

"Maybe you should direct your action to finding my missing prisoner," a young man's voice said from behind us.

"C-Captain!" Annabeth cried, straightening instantly and saluting the man in the doorway. There was no trace of the smile she'd been sporting at something Gene had said.

We all turned toward the door to find a young man just a few years older than Naru leaning against the doorframe. He had blonde hair that fell across his forehead above eyes the color of wet ash, and just barely brushed the color of his navy blue uniform. He had only a few inches on Naru and just as much muscle. He gave our little ragtag team a cursory glance, his eyes half-lidded with boredom. His eyes lingered on me for a moment too long before moving back to Annabeth. "Care to explain what happened here, Officer Oshiro?"

"Yes sir! Officers Takahashi, Akiyama, and Ueda decided to play a little prank on me sir, but it will get cleaned up," she responded, her arms held at her side, and her chin held high.

"Good, make sure of that, and clean yourself up. You look disgraceful," he told her, turning his eyes to stare at Naru, "You must be Mr. Shibuya. Make sure your first priority is finding my prisoner."

My teeth snapped together in aggravation. I wanted so bad to put this man in his place. Who was he to be treating Annabeth that way? Or to be ordering Naru around for that matter? I stared intently at Naru's back, urging him silently to tear into him.

Naru's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "My first priority is to rid your station of whatever is haunting it. If the woman turns up along the way, then that is simply a bonus," he replied with as much authority as the man standing before him, "If that is going to be an issue, my team and I will simply leave."

A muscle in his man's jaw jumped. He glared coldly, only receiving just as cold a glare in return. "No, stay, do whatever you like. Just get me my prisoner back," he said, turning from us. He was turned halfway when he paused and glared at Annabeth, "Get cleaned up, and get back to work. Don't let me find you in this sorry state again."

"Yes sir!" Annabeth called again, saluting him once more. He walked out the door, his shoulders pushed back, his muscles tense.

I waited until the tap of his shiny black shoes had faded. "How long is that stick shoved up his ass because he's pretty fucking uptight?" I asked, my eyes narrowing with anger and the pain of my migraine. I curled and uncurled my fists, resisting the urge to punch the closest thing next to me, which happened to be John. He cringed away from my rage, skittering across the room to start cleaning up the couch and chairs.

Annabeth was silent, staring down at her shoes. "Let's just get this cleaned up as quickly as possible," she mumbled, bending over to pick up the papers under her feet.

"Annabeth?" Gene asked, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged out from under his hand, ignoring any concern he directed towards her.

Unfazed, Naru kicked the door shut, moving to the monitors. "What else did you guys find?"

"Only one of the prisoners has ever mysteriously gone missing. We couldn't find a picture of him or even his name, but he was documented as being housed here for less than a year before his disappearance," Jessica replied tightly, crushing the paper she held.

"When was he here?" Naru asked, bringing up the video from last night so he could begin reviewing it.

"There was no date. I think someone tried to erase him from the system. Something other than a disappearance must have happened." She unfolded the paper, smashing it once more with even more force. Her face screwed up in anger showing just how truly angry she was.

"I'll bet Mr. High-n-Mighty knows something," Ayako muttered.

"Is that all you found?" Naru asked, ignoring his team's displeasure.

"Besides the usual nonsense about structure and what not, yes," I answered this time, "Can we please finish this case as soon as possible?"

Naru nodded, tapping the stacks of paper so they were all even. "That's fine by me," he agreed.

**There you go! My swim meet went okay. I felt so bad about not posting a new chapter, so I kind of rushed this one. So, who already hates Mr. Stick-up-his-ass because I already do, and I only made him up for padding more or less. He might become more prominent later on though. Anyway, review good sirs and ladies! Yes? :D**


	11. Chapter 11: Marks

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt, guys.**

Chapter 11: Marks

"I going to go pee," I announced at a quarter to six, hoisting myself from my seat on Naru's lap. I was pulled back down, landing hard in the middle of his lap. He let a small, quiet groan of pain slip between his lips. "That's your own fault. You were the one who pulled me down onto you."

Naru didn't reply. Instead, he took the chance to leave a trail of chaste kisses up my shoulder and neck. He kept his arms tight around my waist, keeping me flush against his body.

"Hey, what's up with you? Why are you being so affectionate in public?" I murmured back to him, smiling gently.

"Just 'cause I can be," he replied with that snarky tone of his, releasing his lips from my neck and his arms from around my waist, "Didn't you have to go to the bathroom?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, rising from his lap. Laughter came from the surrounding group. "What did you do?" I shot at him, glaring at each member in turn, "What is so damn funny? Tell me!" I turned my glare on Gene knowing he'd be the one to tell me in a heartbeat.

Gene pressed a hand hard over his mouth, shoulders shaking in laughter. He pointed at my neck, the smirk wide across his face.

My face heating to a brilliant shade of red, I slapped a hand over my neck where Naru had had his lips pressed. "You're such a jerk!" I cried, storming from the room with my hand covering the small hickey I knew must have marked my skin. I muttered angry curses under my breath as I stomped my way towards the bathrooms.

The halls were nearly silent, the tapping of my shoes on the hardwood the only sound. Every camera I passed whirred innocently, just doing their job, but I still flipped them off along the way, hoping to give the others a good laugh.

I slowed down as the door to the bathroom came in sight. Apprehension filled me. The last time I'd been in there, I'd heard the laughter of a man who wasn't there. With Gene's warnings and my dreams, the apprehension was growing by the second, but the urge to pee overwhelmed all else.

Pushing open the door cautiously, I stared around the empty bathrooms. I moved into the tiled room, hurrying silently over to the first stall I found. I had just pulled down my skirt when I heard the soft mewling. I paused, my skirt halfway down my knees.

"Please, just stop," Annabeth's voice whispered, her voice strained and tiny, so unlike her usual confident tone.

"You are mine. You will forever be mine," the Captain's voice followed sternly. A fist slammed against the metal lockers. "I was the one who saved you, not that man you're throwing yourself at like a bitch in heat. You are mine. Do not forget that."

Annabeth cried out, sharp and painful. "Stop it! Get off of me! Just stop it!" she shouted, her voice full of the rage that I was beginning to feel, "STOP!" A loud bang echoed around the large rooms, followed by the quiet tap of someone's shoes.

Hastily yanking up my skirt, I clambered onto the toilet seat, ducking my head below the line of the top of the stall.

"Get back here! I'm not done talking to you!" the Captain shouted, a second pair of footsteps chasing after the first.

"Yes, we are! You weren't talking to me anyways, you were growling at me!" Annabeth snarled, the slamming of the door accenting her words.

"This is not over yet," the Captain muttered under his breath, the door slamming one last time before everything went silent.

Anger boiled deep within the pit of my stomach, warming me to the core. I wanted to storm from the bathroom and give that man a piece of mind while beating the ever living daylights out of him. No one treats my friends that way!

I dropped to the floor, hurriedly going to the bathroom before throwing the stall door open. I stomped to the sinks, shoving my hands under the hottest water the tap could produce. Glancing up into the mirror, I noticed a medium-sized red mark marring the crook of my neck. "Oh my god!" I cried, slapping a wet hand over the hickey. As I ran from the bathroom, I heard the laughter of an invisible man.

…..

"Why the hell did you give me a hickey?" I shouted as I burst back into base. My surrounding teammates dissolved into fits of hysterical laughter. I shot my worst glare at them before settling on the object of part of my rage.

"Whatever do you mean?" Naru asked innocently, quirking an eyebrow as he turned in his swivel chair to look at me.

"You know damn well what I mean!" I shouted, my hand still pressed securely to my neck.

In my periphery vision, a hand shot into the air. "Okay, so what did I miss? What did Mr. Shibuya do this time?" Annabeth asked, a mischievous smile playing across her lips. She looked absolutely normal, like she hadn't just been being abused only minutes before.

I glanced towards her, trying to push down the rage that boiled just under my skin. It seemed like an impossible endeavor so instead of blowing up on her, I directed the anger to something more prominent. I pulled my hand away from my neck and pointed to the red mark. "This! This is what he did!"

She cocked her head, staring fixedly at the mark. Her hand unconsciously lifted, traveling to her neck. Before it could reach its target, she let her hand drop. A grin appeared once more on her lips. "He gave you a hickey!" she laughed, leaning back in her chair.

"Yeah, and I'm wondering why," I growled, turning my eyes back to glare at him.

Naru had already turned away, a book open in front of him. "Really, it's simple," he replied.

"Then, please, enlighten us," I said sarcastically.

"It was to make sure that all of the other men here know that you are taken," he explained, casually flipping to the next page in his book. For some reason, that seemed absolutely hilarious to me. I let out a bark of laughter that kept going the longer I looked at his back. He turned back to me, his eyebrow rising high on his forehead. "What's so funny?"

My laughter was long from over. Shaking my head, I headed back out the door. "I am so done. I can't do this today," I laughed, leaving Base only to hear the shouting of Annabeth's co-workers. My laughter died in my throat. "Looks like my day isn't over yet," I muttered and hurried after the voices.

**There you go. Sorry for the crappy chapter, I was trying to get it finished since I haven't posted a chapter in what? A week? My excuses? Swim practice, a concert, a shit ton of trig homework, a trig test and a swim meet all in the same week. So yeah. On the bright side, I'm donating blood on Monday :D Please feed the starving author. I'm happiness deprived. It's not a good feeling, guys.**


	12. Chapter 12: Just a Push

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt**

Chapter 12: Just a Push

"What happened?" Annabeth called to the men down the hall, jogging past me. She pushed her way into their tight circle, glancing down at what the men had been staring at. "Have you called an ambulance?" She shot high and surprised as she dropped down beside the thing in the middle.

"It's on its way," a tall man with greying brunette hair said, crouching down beside her, "Why is she back so soon? We haven't even been looking very hard."

"I'm pretty sure that's the entire reason," Annabeth replied, "Let's just be thankful that she's back, and not dead yet."

I pushed between two of the younger male officers, asking, "Annabeth, what happened?" I paused, my eyes going wide, as I spotted Sakura passed out on the floor. Her royal purple jumpsuit was gone leaving her in only her underwear. Purple bruises decorated almost every inch of her pale skin. Lacerations crisscrossed her legs and arms, scratches mingling with the thin lines. "What happened to her?"

Annabeth glanced up at me, fear and suppressed pain swimming in the depths of her sky blue eyes. "The ghost happened to her," she said with the straightest face she could muster. The corners of her mouth quivered as if she was trying to keep from crying.

I dropped down beside her, ignoring Naru and the others as they started asking questions. "Is she going to be okay?" I asked.

"Physically, yeah, eventually, but from this day forward she'll always wonder what happened to herself over those couple days. She's probably never find out," she replied, cradling Sakura's head in her lap. She smoothed back the woman's bangs like a mother would a child. "I'm sorry this had to happen to you, Sakura," she murmured so softly I barely caught her words.

…..

"Alright everyone, let's get back to work before the Captain shows up!" the tall man from before called as the ambulance drove from the station, "Where is that good-for-nothing superior of ours?"

"Off impregnating another girl with his demon spawn," Annabeth shot back angrily, stomping back towards the entrance, "Let's just get back to work." She slammed the door leaving the rest of us wondering after her.

"What crawled up her ass and died?" her partner asked us, pursing his lips.

"Your boss," I growled, staring down the road where the ambulance had disappeared.

"Come on, Mai. Let's go back inside," John said, setting a gentle hand on my shoulder. He smiled, pulling me around towards the door.

Alice bounced up, threading her arm through mine. "Come on, Mai. Let's go make tea and eat cookies. After that, we should go eat somewhere nice. What do ya' say Naru?" She grinned at our boss, wriggling her eyebrows.

He shrugged, turning back to the station. Gene smiled beside him, replacing John and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "Lighten up, Mai. Everything's going to be fine. Sakura's going to live," he coaxed, shaking my shoulder.

"That's not what I'm thinking about," I mumbled, stringing an arm around his waist and leaning into Alice. She giggled, and leaned into me.

Gene frowned. He planted a kiss on my temple. Relief and serenity flooded through my body, warming me with a gentle flame. "Stop worrying Mai. Everything is going to be fine. We're all going to be okay."

Despite the comforting feelings, I sighed. "I wish I could believe that." We were just entering the station when I felt my skirt being flipped up. I let out a gasp of horror, breaking from Alice's and Gene's grip. Spinning around, I glanced around to find the person, but there was no one there. John had been walking in front of us, so it couldn't have been him, but it was unfathomable to think he'd ever do something like that.

"What's the matter?" John asked.

I pressed the back of my skirt against my thighs. I turned back slowly. "N-nothing. Um, let's just get back," I muttered, hurrying past the others, constantly glancing over my shoulder as my paranoia grew with every step.

…..

"Did Naru go to the hospital to question Sakura?" I asked Gene as we wandered through the halls, making one last check of the cameras before heading back to the hotel, "Is he going to meet us back at the hotel?"

"Yes for the first, and I don't know for the second. He may just come back here and take night watch, or he may go back to keep an eye on you. It's hard to tell with him," he replied, grinning down at me.

"Yeah," I murmured, staring down at my shoes. My mind ambled from memory to memory, first moving between the two times that I'd felt the dulling of pain due to a kiss to my temple, and then over to the few dreams I'd had. Was I wrong for not telling anyone? My latest dream might be the proverbial key to solve this case.

"Have you had any dreams lately?" he asked.

Ignoring him, I mulled silently over my options until I was shoved from behind. I pitched forward. Gene wasn't close enough to catch me. "Mai!" he cried as my face made good friends with the floor. Black flooded my vision. When I came to, I was staring up at my friends from the couch in base, half of them fuzzed out by something white and fluffy.

"What happened?" I mumbled around the white fluff over my mouth.

"You passed out," Jessica told me from somewhere passed the fuzz.

I groaned, attempting to push myself up, but firm hands held me down. I glared up into Naru's face. My eyebrows jumped to my hairline, and my glare softened. "Hi Naru."

"Now, how did you manage to pass out and give yourself a bloody nose?" he asked.

I frowned. "I think… I was… walking with Gene, and then… somebody pushed me. After that, nothing." I shrugged as best I could while lying down.

"Gene said that you just fell forward. Why didn't you try to catch yourself?" he asked, leaning closer so that we were nearly nose to nose.

"I don't know," I said, "It just didn't occur to me. I was too shocked."

Naru rolled his eyes. "Mai, catching yourself is a knee jerk reaction."

"Well, I guess I'm just too stupid to have such a simple thing as a knee jerk reaction," I grumbled, trying to look at the others, but I couldn't see around Naru.  
"Naru, get out of the way so I can check her nose," Ayako shouted, batting him out of the way with a rolled up magazine, like he was a pesky cat. He grumbled an obscenity under his breath, but moved out of the away. Ayako's flaming red hair and eyes came into view. "Now hold still," she said, pulling at the cloth that had been pressed to my nose.

I flailed helplessly at the sensation that prevented itself. "I think I have to sneeze!" I cried.

"Do not sneeze!" Ayako shouted, "I will destroy you if you get blood on my dress!" The rest of the team started laughing, jumping away from us. "Okay, you're good. I think it's time to go back to the hotel now. Here, blow into the towel." She pulled me into a sitting position, folding the towel to a white side and holding it to my face.

"That sounded nasty," Damien laughed once I'd blown my nose, clapping me on the back.

Alice yawned loudly, leaning heavily on John. "I'm tired," she complained.

"I guess it's time to go back," Naru said, running his arms around my waist.

"Yeah," we all agreed in unison.

**There you go guys. I'm not sure if this chapter would have turned out any better if I'd waited a few days, so oh well. I'm hoping tomorrows will be better. See you guys tomorrow, hopefully (: Review, yes?**


	13. Chapter 13: Bathroom Creeps

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt, and never will! Yay :P**

Chapter 13: Bathroom Creeps

"Mai, are you ready to go?" Naru asked, poking his head around the door into the bathroom. He glanced towards the mirror where I could be seen through a crack between the fake tiled wall and curtain.

I met his eyes in the mirror and raised an eyebrow. "I'll be done in a few minutes, don't worry," I told him letting my eyes slide shut as I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair. I didn't hear the door immediately click shut so I mouthed the word, 'Pervert,' with a small grin. I heard a chuckle, and then the door clicked shut. Letting a laugh slip past my lips, I left my eyes closed and let my mind wander.

Immediately, my mind drifted to my dreams. I groaned, letting my head fall back so that the shower pelted my face with warm droplets. "This sucks," I muttered, but sighed, "I should just tell him before something goes wrong, and inevitably, something will." My voice faded, pushed down by the running water, leaving my sucked in silence.

It was no issue for me to hear as the door quietly creaked open. Frowning, I called, "I am no more done than I was two minutes ago, Naru." I received no answer in return. Poking my head around the curtain, I found the door wide open giving me a perfect view of the sink and random hygiene products spread across the counter. "Rude," I muttered, pulling back into the steamy warmth.

The silence pressed in around me once more, but this time it wasn't as comfortable as it had been before. The feeling of being watched washed over me. My blood turned to ice despite the heated water.

"Time to get out," I murmured, shutting off the water. I pulled the shower curtain against my chest, reached out my hand and padding it around until I felt the fluffy material under my hand. I pulled it into the shower with me, tightening it around my body, tucking the tip into my cleavage. I flung back the curtain, and clambered out. "It'd be a good time to come back now, Naru."

I pushed the bathroom door shut, locking it securely as it clicked shut. Feeling no better than before, I squirmed. I'd need to get dressed at some point, preferably sooner than later, but I felt the need to wait for Naru. Would that make the feeling go away, though? Hm, probably not.

Sighing, I pulled my clothes across the counter towards me. I wiped of the water still clinging to my skin and dropped my towel. I picked up my panties and held them up, examining them. They looked perfectly fine, not tampered with. Making a noise of acceptance in the back of my throat, I pulled them on.

I was just clipping my bra into place when a pair of icy hand gripped my hands with bruising force, pulling me against something hard and cold. I let out a screech of pain and fear, spinning around to face the person behind me. There was no one there.

Hands clamped around my wrists, yanking me forward. I pulled against the invisible grip, but it only gripped my hard. Tears stung my eyes, threatening to make an appearance.

A short, harsh, male laugh echoed quietly around the bathroom.

"Mai? Are you alright? Mai, what happened?" Naru and Gene both called, banging hard against the bathroom door.

Ignoring my half-nakedness, I pulled the door open and flung myself into Naru's arms. Keening noises squeezed between my lips as my hands tightened on his shirt.

"Gene, go get a blanket or something," Naru ordered, not taking his eyes off of me, "Mai, what happened?" He ran his hands along my skin checking for any open wounds. His hands ran across my hips causing me to wince. He paused, frowning, his fingers held just over my hips. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"I-I think I'm bruised," I murmured into his shirt, my grip tightening around his shirt do that my muscles and tendons pushed out against my skin. I winced again.

"Where?" he asked, sharp and insistent. The itchy woolen blanket from the bed dropped around my shoulders, covering any uncovered skin, which was nearly all of me.

"My wrists and my hips," I whispered, my shoulders tightening at the thought. My fingers went slack and my knees buckled.

Naru caught me easily in his arms, holding me tight against his torso. He pulled me up higher, and pulled me over to the bed. Tucking the blanket around me, he set me on the edge of the mattress. "Let me see," he murmured, tugging at one of my hands.

I let it fall forward limply, grimacing as the bruise bumped against my knees. A dark, almost black, purple bruise wrapped around the whole of my small wrist. Just the sight of the bruise had me shivering with fear.

Pulling my hand gently into his palm, he ran his fingers gently across the dark purple smudge. He turned my wrist this way and that, examining it from every angle. Placing my hand back in my lap, he looked up at me. "Your hip," he said simply.

I turned my legs sideways on the bed, letting the half of the blanket falling open to expose one side of my body. Gene, standing stiffly against one wall, gasped audibly, his eyes roaming over the spot. I dropped my eyes to the bruise and felt my own gasp catch in my throat.

The bruise spanning my hip was worse than the one around my wrist. This bruise was black, slowly appearing from deep under my skin. It was forming in the shape of a large, very male hand. Half moons were dug into my skin at the fingertips of the hand.

"Mai, what happened? Who did this?" Naru asked quietly, rage roiling beneath his words.

"I-I d-don't know. I w-was getting d-dressed when… when hands grabbed me," I whispered, my voice cracking and stammering as I tried to explain what had happened, "They pulled m-me against something, or someone. I p-pulled away as quickly as I could, but the h-hands g-grabbed my w-wrists instead and tried to pull m-me forward a-again. That was when y-you and Gene s-showed up." My lips trembled as my words died. "Naru, I'm so scared. What just happened?" The tears finally fell, dropping down my face in hot streaks. I fell forward, wrapping my arms around his neck.

He pulled my tightly against his chest, wrapping his arms around my. "I don't know," he murmured, "But I'll definitely find out no matter what it takes. I will get to the bottom of this." He pressed his lips to the hickey that still marred the inside of my neck sending a pleasant, calming wave through my entire body.

"Do you think it was the ghost?" I whispered, wishing silently that he'd kiss the mark again sending through emotions through me again. I barely registered the sound of the door clicking shut as Gene left the room.

Naru was silent for a moment. "I don't know, but we won't take any chances. Don't leave my side for anything. Promise me." He pulled back, staring into my eyes sternly.

"I promise," I murmured. My stomach dropped as I thought about how mad he would be after my next explanation. "Naru, I have to tell you something."

**There you go, guys! I hope this chapter was better than the proceeding ones. Look at that! Chapter 13! This is crazy! Well, anyway, sorry that I didn't post this yesterday, but I really really wasn't feeling it after giving blood, so yeah. But I got it today! :D Review for your dear poor author in training, yes?**


	14. Chapter 14: High and Mighty

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt**

Chapter 14: High and Mighty

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" Naru shouted, glaring down at me as we sat in Base, "All of this could have been prevented if you had told me sooner! How many times do we have to go through this before it's drilled into your helpless brain?"

I flinched, but I deserved it so I kept my head down and my temper in check.

"If I may be so inclined to point out," Damien interjected, narrowing his eyes at the smaller man, "None of this would have been prevented, you just would have possibly known a cause to the original. That doesn't mean you could have stopped it from happening. So back. Off." He threaded an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side.

I leaned my head into his warmth, keeping my eyes down. "I'm sorry, Naru," I murmured, "I just… I don't know. I'm sorry."

Naru made a side of aggravation in the back of his throat before turning his fury on Annabeth. "And what's your excuse? This entire case may have been solved by now if you had told us about the shooting."

Annabeth jumped to her feet, glaring right back at Naru. "Well, it's not getting solved by you standing around yelling at everyone! Stop being a little bitch and just back to what you were doing!" she shouted at him, storming from the room in a rage that could be heard down the hall.

Surprised eyes followed her out, followed by Gene rushing after her. Our eyes snapped to Naru. He looked utterly insulted, and I knew today would be hell for anyone and everyone. At first, I thought I'd have the worst day because I was confined to the room with him, but it quickly came to light that that wasn't the case.

Mostly, Naru ignored me. He seethed quietly in a corner on his own while I tried to find random things to do around Base. Whenever one of the others would walk into the room, he'd immediately send them out on another ridiculous errand. He even sent Lin out a few times leaving us to wallow in uncomfortable silence.

"Noll, we need to talk," Gene snarled as he entered Base hours later. Anger rolled off of him. My eyes went wide and I inconspicuously hid behind one of the large chairs. I'd never seen Gene so angry before. It simply wasn't natural, and to be honest, I was a little afraid.

"About what?" Naru shot at him, spinning to glare daggers at his twin.

"About you being a blatant asshole!"

"And what about my behavior?" Naru leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers in front of his mouth.

Gene narrowed his eyes at the younger twin. "You need to quit it. Just because you're pissed that you weren't told some things doesn't mean you can take it out on your employees or employers. You need to get off your high horse, or I'm going to shove you off."

"Why shouldn't I be angry? They kept relevant facts from me-"

Gene cut him off. "You want to know why they didn't tell you?" He didn't give Naru time to answer. "Because Mai knew you'd do this to her! She was afraid you'd kick her off the case and send her back home, or keep her quarantined to Base. Annabeth didn't tell you because she didn't want you running off to rat on her deceased co-worker to her asshole of a boss! If he found out what she did, he'd release that information to the press, and disgrace her and her family. Maybe you should open your eyes for once in your life and take a peek at other people's reasons for their actions. You know what? Take your idiotic, righteous pride and shove it up your ass!" By the end of his rant, Gene had adopted a British accent that left me a little confused. He turned on his heel in a huff, hands clenched at his sides, and exited the room, slamming the door shut as loudly as he could.

Naru stared after his brother with wide eyes. After a long moment, he released a long sigh, running a hand through his hair. "I really should have seen that coming," he muttered, spinning back towards what he'd been doing before. The anger around him had dissipated, leaving a dying charge to fill the air.

I crouched behind the chair, unsure of how to proceed. I could slip from the room and try to find the others, but risk Naru's fury later. I could stay behind the chair, and contemplate the outcomes of my decisions. I could make myself know, and actually go talk to my boyfriend. I could even curl up behind the chair and take a nap. Really, the possibilities were endless.

I contemplated my options for only a moment before painfully making my way to my feet. My joints cracked like I was an old woman alerting Naru to my presence. He turned to watch me approach him, his mouth sealed as if with superglue.

I came to stand in front of him, staring down at my pigeon-toed toes. I felt heat slowly creep across my face. "Look, Naru…" I trailed off, wondering what I'd been meaning to say.

Instead of giving me the time to consider my words, Naru wrapped a gentle hand around my arm above my wrist, pulling me down into his lap. "I'm sorry I've been such a dick today," he murmured in my ear.

"No, I understand why," I replied, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my nose in his neck, "I just don't like it when you're mad at me, even though that's most of the time."

"That's because you're so infuriating," he chuckled into the crook of my neck.

"But that's why you love me, right?" I joked, leaning back to grin at him.

"Definitely," he agreed, wrapping his arm around my waist, "and everything else about you, of course." He smiled a small, happy smile.

My face felt hot with embarrassment. "Don't say stuff like that!" I cried, hiding my face in his hair, "It's embarrassing!"

"And that's why I keep saying those things," he quipped, grabbing my side playfully. I let out a screech of laughter, wiggling on his lap. He smirked continuing his ministrations without a care in the world.

We were long into out tickling match when something on the screen caught both our eyes. We paused, staring up at the screens. In one of the middle screens, Annabeth and Gene were wrapped tightly in each other's arms.

"Aww, how adorable," I cooed, pulling Naru closer to me.

"My brother likes someone," Naru laughed, but suddenly cut off, "Something seems wrong."

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking between the screen and him.

"I don't know…" He trailed off, standing up slightly while still holding me against his body to stare at the screen harder. Suddenly, his eyes went wider than normal. He dropped me in the chair, and bolted from the room.

I scrambled from my sitting position, landing on the floor first before getting to my feet. "Wait, Naru! What's the matter?" I called, running after him without a second glance at the screen.

**Oooo, wonder what'll happen next. I guess we'll have to wait to find out *dramatic pause* Alrighty, then! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter I have given you. Drop me some reviews… please? I feel like talking to some of you guys :P**


	15. Chapter 15: Just in Time

**Oh my sweet baby cookies, the fifteenth chapter already! That's crazy! :D Anyway, I'll be posting a new Hetalia one-shot sometime soon (maybe more than just one)! Be looking for it, 'kay? Enjoy the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Chapter 15: Just in Time

"Gene!" Naru shouted as he flung himself around a corner. His feet skidded across the hardwood, but he somehow managed to keep his footing. He pushed himself to go faster, trying to get to the pair before something worse happened.

"Naru! What happened?" I shouted, sprinting after him. Even at my fastest sprint he was still much faster than me, forcing me to push myself harder. It wasn't getting me anywhere besides making me lag behind even more.

"What's all of the yelling for?" Annabeth's partner called as we sped past him. He popped his head out the door leading to the collective offices. He scowled after me.

I paused, dropping my hands onto my knees. "I d-don't know, but I think Annabeth is in trouble," I gasped. I straightened, inhaling deeply before taking off again. Naru had already disappeared around another corner.

"W-wait, what?" the man cried, bolting after me.

The scene we came upon had us both stopping dead in our tracks. Gene had his hands wrapped tightly around Annabeth's throat. She clutched at his fingers so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her teeth and eyes were clenched against the strain. Naru's hands had joined her hands, struggling against Gene's only tightening finger.

"Gene, stop it! Let her go!" Naru shouted, wrapping Gene in a strangle hold.

As if it were a struggle, Gene turned his eyes to look at his brother. His eyes were still that beautiful navy blue as his brother's, but they were slowly being taking over by a lighter, sky blue. "Naru, h-help me. I can't shove him out. I can't stop him!" his whispered around the restriction on his windpipe, "Get him out of me." They stared at each other for one drawn out second before Gene finally released once last gasp of air. His eyes fluttered shut, and his muscles finally went slack. His hands fell away from Annabeth's neck.

She crashed to the floor, retching and gasping for breath. Her hands formed a protective barrier around her now bruising neck. "What just happened? He just attacked me!" she gasped, looking up at Naru.

Finally, her partner broke from his shock. "Annabeth!" he cried, rushing to her side. He dropped down beside her, pulling her hands away so he could examine her neck more closely. "What the hell just happened?"

I followed after the man coming to stand beside Naru and the unconscious Gene. I looked between the two quizzically, not voicing my question seeing as the other two had asked it twice for me.

"He's possessed," Naru said simply, "Or at least was."

"Are you sure he's not just crazy?" the man grumbled.

"He's not!" Annabeth shouted, her voice raspy, "He's not crazy!"

"Well, that's the only logical explanation! Possession is just a myth, and an excuse."

Annabeth glowered at her partner, opening her mouth to quip back at him, but Naru beat her to it. "Possession is a very real occurrence, and I must point out that if this situation was in any way logical, my team and I would not be here right now." The man gaped up at him, but couldn't formulate any kind of response.

"Naru, what happened? We heard yelling," John asked, jogging up with Alice in tow. She cocked her head curiously at the odd scene she was confronted with, but for once in her life she kept her mouth shut.

Shaking his head, Naru passed Gene off to John. "Take him back to Base. Don't let him out of your sight if he wakes up. If you can, get Masako to check if he's possessed."

John nodded, pulling the larger man on to his back with Alice's help. They disappeared around the corner. Multiple voices could be heard hurrying towards us, but John's voice soon joined then, and they were quickly diverted from the scene.

Naru dropped down in front of Annabeth, pushing up her chin gently so he could make his own examination of her injuries. She stayed perfectly still, her eyes closed to the world. "What happened to lead up to the attack?" he finally asked, removing his fingers and letting her chin drop.

"Well, we were just walking around avoid Base with you and your orders after Gene came back. We were walking and have a good laugh. He hugged me, then…" Her voice trailed off, and a girlish little smile lit up her features. The smile was quickly replaced by a scowl. "Suddenly, the air around him began to change. His hold on me became almost painful. Then he just started strangling me. After first, his hands were shaking like he was fighting against something, but the slowly tightened. Then you guys came, and saved me. The end." She sighed loudly, her shoulders sagging. "And I now sound like a dying walrus."

I bit back a giggle, but she grinned at me.

"This is not a laughing matter!" her partner shouted at her.

"Hey! You're always the one making jokes during serious situations," she shot back, glaring at him, "Plus, Mai and I found it funny." Her partner groaned in exasperation.

"I think it'd be best if you steer clear of Gene and just the building in general until the case is over," Naru suggested, getting to his feet. He held out a hand that she gladly took. "It's obvious that both you and Mai are targets. It'd be better to just stay home or at the hotel."

"No!" we shouted together, standing shoulder to shoulder. We glared sternly at him, refusing to bend.

His sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I should have seen that coming too," he muttered to his shoes before raising his voice, "Fine, but you should stay in groups of three or more."

"What are you? Whipped? How can you let them stay here?" Annabeth's partner cried, jumping to his feet in one smooth, lethal movement.

Naru turned his stony gaze on him. "Could you fight against him? I'm not going to start a fight with them," he replied, turning back towards Base, "I feel better with them close at hand anyway." With that, he left the dumbstruck man staring after him. Annabeth and I clasped hands happily doing a little victory dance, even though we knew it wasn't much of a victory. Something was better than nothing though.

…..

_I was back in the basement like room again. I leaned against a corner, my head lulling back into the concrete wall. All around me, there were the sounds of excitement and merry-making, all coming from above me through the wooden floors. My stomach joined in the cacophony with a more than audible growl. I glanced down at the exposed flesh of my stomach, wondering if I'd ever know what it felt like to be hungry again._

_A groan scratched up my dry throat, pushing past my lips as only a quiet whisper. "Help me," I tried to call, but the words couldn't be formed. Giving up on the thought of speech, I let myself slide sideways onto floor. '_I just want to die_,' I thought miserably._

"_Darling, I'm back," a soft, excited voice called from the trapdoor as it was eased open. A head of flaming orange hair poked above the edge. The black drawstring bag flew from the hole, landing somewhere to the side of me._

'Oh god_.' The familiar fear curled through my veins again. I closed my eyes tightly, evening out my breathing to make it seem like I'd been sleeping. Maybe if I pretended, he'd leave me be for a little while longer. '_Just let me die. Please_.'_

"_Darling, come on, wake up. I've brought you something special today. It'll make you feel amazing, and maybe a little better. You look so ill. Come on, this'll help you," the man said happily, shaking my shoulder gently._

_I kept my eyes shut, hoping, always hoping, that he'd go away._

"_No matter. Even if you won't wake up, I can still give it to you. You'll wake up then." There as shuffling and the clink of metal against glass. "Here you go."_

_I forced myself to stay still as there was a sharp prick in the inside of my elbow. Warmth washed through my veins. It coursed through my body, inciting fire and pain as it spread. My heart beat laboriously, struggling to keep pumping. It pumped once, twice, slowly with each contraction. '_This is the end… Thank god,_' I thought wistfully. I let out my last breath as my heart shuddered to a stop._

_Suddenly, I wasn't in the cement room anymore. I stood beside the body of a young girl, spread eagle beside a beautiful glistening river. Sunlight glinted off her brunette hair, casting a fuzzy halo around her head. She looked peaceful, as if she were simply sleeping._

_The woman from my last dream stumbled from the bushes. She landed on her hands and knees beside the young girl. Shock crossed her features, tears slipping. "M-Misaki… no. No! Not my baby sister! Misaki, please! Wake up!" the woman cried, uselessly shaking the girl's shoulders, "No! Misaki!" Her sobs carried far out, calling others to her._

_Annabeth and her partner burst through the bushes, skidding to a stop with wide shocked eyes. "M-Misaki," she whispered, a hand clamping down over her mouth, "Oh god." She turned, disappearing back into the voices, but her retching could be heard._

_Her partner fell beside the corpse, his hands trembling over her young, broken body. His voice shook as he whispered her name. He lowered his hands, cupping her face. "Baby, baby please. Y-you can't be dead. Please, wake up. Misaki, baby." He broke down over her, his tears splattering across her exposed skin._

"_Hey, you!" Annabeth screeched from somewhere behind us, "Stop right there! Get down on the ground now!" The man who was responsible for the girl's death fell through the bushes onto his front. Annabeth landed on his back, jerking his arms so that she could cuff him. Tears still streamed down her face, dripping from the tip of her chin. "You're not going to get away with this," she snarled._

"_That's what you think," he murmured, a smile teased up the corners of his lips, "We'll definitely see about that."_

**Well, there you go. I really don't know what the point of the dream was, but oh well. I guess background? So anyway, I am really excited for the weekend. My week has been less than spectacular, but the good thing is that next week I get to sleep in because we have reverse minimum due to the sophomores taking their exit exams. Yay! Already did them last year! Anyway, I hope you guys had a better week than be and have a great weekend. Review, please? :D**

**P.S. – Guys, it looks like we're going to the end of this case sometime soon. Maybe another 5-6 chapters from now. It was fun writing for you guys.**


	16. Chapter 16: 2 in 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, guys!**

Chapter 16: 2 in 1

_I jerked awake, sitting up. I stared around the dimly lit Base, blinking hard to bring everything back into focus. It was like I was staring through cloudy glass that no matter how hard I rubbed at it, it never cleared._

_As far as I could tell through my blurred vision, there was no one else in Base. Frowning, I pulled myself from the couch I'd been laid out on, feeling my way through the room to the door. I glanced over at the monitors, checking for the others, but they were blacked out. My frown only deepened._

"_Naru? Gene? Annabeth?" I called softly as I poked my head out the door, glancing up and down the blackened halls, "Is anyone here?" Cautiously, I slid my foot out, taking another step when my path wasn't blocked by anything. "Hello?"_

_A giggle echoed behind me, very male and very real._

_A shiver of terror skittered up my spine. My eyes swung around, searching for the giggle's source. Obviously, there was nothing there, but I could feel eyes on me. "I should just go..." My words trailed off as I turned to head back into Base, but it was gone. "Shit." Inhaling deeply, I turned back to the hall. "Only one way to go now."_

"_Where is everyone?" I asked the blackness._

"_Not here," a male voice sang playfully, making me jump._

_I spun around, searching once again for an invisible source. "Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself," I demanded, my voice sounding stronger and more confident than I felt._

"_Right here," the voice whispered behind me._

_I spun around, flinging out my hand to catch the person, but the giggles danced away. My fingertips grazed over the thick, course fabric of their T-shirt. "So close, but not quite," he laughed._

"_Who __**are**__ you?" I shouted angrily, my voice only bouncing back to me from the surrounding walls. "Answer me! This is getting ridiculous!"_

_The voice was right behind me once more as he whispered, "Oh, you know who I am."_

_Instead of turning immediately, I stood stock still, my hands pressed to my chest in an attempt to keep my pumping heart from jumping through my ribs. It thrummed at a pace I'd only felt a few times in my life. "What do you want?" I whispered, my voice shaking as large, freezing hands slid over my hips and down the sides of my thighs._

_The hands tightened to a bruising tightness, until I flinched under his grasp. "You."_

…..

I let out a shriek of terror lost in the dryness of my throat. I scrambled into a sitting position, backing into a corner of the couch. My eyes flickered around the room, taking in the sharply in focus elements of the room.

Naru sat at the monitors per usual, staring up at the screens, but not really seeing what was happening. His eyes were half-lidded, and every few seconds he would blink rapidly as if trying to keep himself awake. Beside him, Lin rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, the other tapping away at the keys of his laptop. Ayako and Monk claimed a seat as their own, quietly snoring against each other. Masako and Yasu were slumped together under the window. John and Alice claimed another chair, John reading a book while Alice breathed deeply in his ear in sleep. Jessica and Daemon drooled together on the papers scattered across the coffee table.

Annabeth claimed the last chair, Gene sleeping beside the chair with his head resting on the armrest. Her face was contorted in confusion and discomfort. She squirmed in her chair, a sound between a growl and mewl slipping quietly between her lips.

"Annabeth," I croaked, crawling away from my corner towards her. I reached out, my fingers just hovering over the back of her hand. "Annabeth, wake up."

Naru's brow furrowed. He turned to me, his eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep, just as Annabeth let out a shriek. I jerked back. The others jerked awake, staring wide-eyed at the woman screaming as she writhed in the chair.

Gene jumped, staring around in confusion. He attempted to jump to his feet, but his hand and feet were still bound together. "W-what the-" he stuttered, but his words were cut off by another wordless scream.

I dropped from the couch, scrambling over to her. "Annabeth, wake up! It's only a dream! Wake up!" I shouted, my voice hardly above a whisper though.

"Naru! Naru, untie me!" Gene shouted at his twin, his eyes never leaving Annabeth, "Please, wake her up!" Shaking himself from his daze, Naru hurried over to us. He grabbed her shoulders.

"Slap her," Ayako suggested, standing behind him.

He glared over his shoulder at her. "Is that the only thing you know how to do?"

She shrugged. "It works doesn't it?"

"You do it then." He pulled back, giving Ayako a clear shot.

Shrugging, she pulled back her hand. The crack of skin against skin had us all jumping again. "That one kind of her," she muttered, staring down at her reddening hand.

Annabeth's eyes snapped open wide, her hand flying to her beet red cheek. "Did you slap me? With a ring on?" she shouted lividly at the top of her lungs, but her voice had quickly become as quickly as mine, glaring at the older woman.

"You were screaming, and wouldn't wake up," Ayako said, shrugging. She turned, sauntering away.

"I was…" she mumbled confusedly, when a scowl pulled down her lips.

"Annabeth…" I called quietly, somehow knowing that the whole scene hadn't been caused by a simple nightmare, but something related to my own dream, "What happened in your dream?"

For a moment, I thought she'd actually answer me, but she averted her eyes, turning them to stare at the hardwood. "Nothing," she replied. Pulling herself from her seat, her hand still pressed protectively over her cheek, she made her way away from us. Around her neck, the dark purple bruises from her strangulation obvious on her skin.

"Masako, do you sense the spirit from before in Gene's body anymore?" Naru asked, looking down at his twin.

Masako looked to him, stretching out a cautious hand to run her fingers over his forehead. For a moment, they were frozen, both their eyes closed. She pulled her fingers away slowly, tucking them in her kimono sleeve. "No, the spirit has left him," she replied.

Sighing, Naru went around Gene, untying him quickly. "If you have to send somebody with me, but I'm going after her," Gene told him, bolting out the door, "Annabeth!"

Rolling his eyes, Naru looked around his group, "John, Alice, go with him."

"Yes, sir!" Alice called, saluting him and dragging John out the door.

When they were out of sight, he turned to me. "Now, you're going to tell us about the dream you just had." I sighed, and nodded.

**There you go. Hope you enjoyed it. Review, please! :D**


	17. Chapter 17: Left Alone

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

**Oh, and this chapter is unedited like all of the others because I'm lazy as hell. Have fun!**

Chapter 17: Left Alone

Sighing, I snuggled into Naru's chest, letting my breathing sync with his slow rhythm. It was easy to tell when he was really sleeping and when he was still awake now. I mean, after sleeping in the same bed as him for months on end with little to no reprieves between I'd hope that I knew at least that. This was one of those times that he actually fell asleep before me. On nights like this, I liked to think without being distracted as his fingers gently traced patterns in my skin.

Tonight though, I let my mind jump from thing to thing, not really thinking too hard on one topic. I mentally sighed, not for the first time wondering if my abilities would ever develop further. That was, as usual, squashed by the image of Naru telling me a few years back that my abilities would advance quickly, surpassing even Masako's abilities in a few years even as hers still continued to advance. He'd reminded me that to some extent, our abilities never stopped growing, but slowed down to almost a snail's pace at times. Then, with flashes over the years, I was reminded of how great my abilities truly had grown from what they'd been at first.

'_Why am I wondering about my abilities? I don't really want them moving past where they are. I'm fine right where I am_,' I told myself, mentally nodding my head. Slowly, I started to realize how cold it was, even pressed against my boyfriend with the comforter pulled almost over my head. Frowning, I pushed closer to Naru, physically shaking as a wave of terror washed over me.

'_Something isn't right_,' I thought, peeking over the edge of the blanket. Thick, inky darkness surrounded. Not even the blazing neon green of the numbers on the clock placed only a foot or so away from me on the bedside table couldn't cut through the black. The constant blinking red light of the fire alarm and the thin sliver of light from the street lamps outside were missing. '_I don't like this_.'

Shifting just barely away from Naru, I pushed myself up on an elbow just enough to take a quick survey of the room. I couldn't even make out the other furniture around the room, let alone the bedside table right next to me.

I dropped back down, burrowing into Naru's chest, and wrapping my arms tightly around his waist. '_Nothing is going to happen while I'm with Naru. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is-_'

The quiet laughter of a man cut through my thoughts, making my hope a complete lie to myself. Bracing myself, I slowly retracted my arms, but keeping my fingers threaded through Naru's, and I turned to face the thing waiting for me.

Sky blue eyes and too white teeth blazed at me through the inky darkness. "Hello, darling, I've come for you," he said, his smiled widening even further.

"I don't want to. You can't make me," I told him, pressing back into the somehow still snoozing Naru.

"Oh, but I can," the man replied, the grin only growing. I didn't see the hands reaching for me, but suddenly I was being yanked from Naru. My scream was cut off by a large hand slamming over my mouth. "Ah, ah, ah, none of that. We don't want to wake him now do we?" the man asked as he slowly pulled me away from Naru.

I reached out, wanting to scream, wanting him to save me. My thoughts raged and roiled through my mind, screaming for someone –anyone!- to come to my rescue. It was no surprise that I wasn't answered. My hands dropped little bit by little bit as I was dragged further and further away from the bed. With one final push, I screamed in my head as loud as I possibly could, '_Naru!_'

…..

'_Naru!_' Mai screeched. Naru jerked awake with a gasp as the thought slammed into his mind. He slammed into a sitting position, staring around the empty room. His head pounded like he'd been drinking the night up and gotten plastered. The light spilling in from the lamp posts outside the window and the clock, he could see that the bed beside him was empty.

Pressing a hand to his head, over his right eye where the pain was centered, he called, "Mai? Are you in here?" Through the haze of pain, he tried to gauge just how empty the room was. Mai was nowhere that he could see, and no light spilled from under the door of the bathroom. "Where could that girl of wandered off to?" he muttered.

Somewhere on the bedside table, his voice started to violently vibrate, skittering across the wooden surface. Snatched up the dancing phone, he pressed it to his ear without checking who it was. He wouldn't be able to see the number or letters on the screen anyway. "Hello?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep. He cleared his throat.

"Naru! She's gone!" Gene cried hysterically on the other end.

Pulling the phone away an inch as his headache began to pound furiously, he allowed his twin to run out of breath before speaking. "Who is missing?"

"Annabeth!"

"What? Where did she go?"

"Do you think I'd be calling you if I knew? I called her cell, she didn't pick up. I called her partner and asked him, he doesn't know. I think something bad happened to her! And I woke up with this hell of a headache, but I don't know if that's relevant." Gene's distress was giving him the attention span of a sparrow, despite the fact that he kept circling back to Annabeth.

"Did you try her home phone?" Naru asked in that condescending voice he possessed, only accented more by his weariness.

"Well, no…"

"Why?"

"Um, well I'm, um, kind of… at her house. In her bed…" His words trailed off, becoming dimmer with each syllable.

"Why are you-? Oh never mind, I already know the answer."

A frigid sense of dread dropped into the pit of Naru's stomach. If Annabeth really was missing, then… Bolting from the bed, cell still clutched in his hand, Naru batted around until he flipped the light on. Blinking against the sudden rush of pain, he stared around, searching for any trace of the girl who he'd fallen asleep beside. The room, as far as he could tell, was devoid of any other person. The bathroom was as empty as the room itself. He glanced around, finding her cell resting on the night stand where she'd left it.

"Naru, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. Where do you think she could have gone?" Gene asked, fear coating his words and painting them a bright, fearful red, "What if-"

He wasn't allowed to finish his statement as Naru cut him off sternly. "Don't start with the 'what ifs'. Mai's missing too, and I have a feeling where we're going to find them. Start getting the others up. We're going to the station."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now." He was already pulling on a pair of black slacks, the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder. He hurried over to Mai's suitcase, rummaging around in it until he pulled out the picture of her parents she was constantly carrying around. He rarely ever saw her not stuff it into one of her pockets in the morning.

Gene was quiet for a moment. "You don't think that…"

"It's the only answer that makes sense, but I hope I'm wrong," Naru replied, ending the call before his twin could ask any more questions. Letting his eyes slide shut, he held the picture tightly in his fingers, hoping his ability helped him for once.

**There you go guys. Wow, two chappies in one day, jeez. So, how were they? I actually quite enjoyed this chapter for some reason. I think it might be because it came more easily than the others. Anyway, hope it was worth reading. Review please :D**


	18. Chapter 18: Worried

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Chapter 18: Worried

Naru paced back and forth in front of the monitors, wearing marks in the hardwood and chewing his nails bloody. He'd already chewed his nail to the quick on his thumb, leaving it a bloody mess, and had since started on his other thumb. Gene was doing a similar thing, so it was more like they were going around in a small oval. The team watched them cautiously, their eyes following them.

"Naru, Gene," Jessica started, sighing loudly, "They're strong women. All we can do at this point is search as hard as we can for them. Believe in them, that they'll be okay."

"Where do you suggest we start then? We know nothing besides the fact that they'll show up in a few days," Naru snapped at her in that condescending manner of his, the wheels in his brain creaking and groaning with the effort to think. Fear for Mai always seemed to gunk up his gears, making them move at a much slower pace than usual.

Jessica narrowed her eyes at him, her frown pulling down harder turning into a full on scowl. She moved from her seat on Daniel's lap as he muttered, "Whelp, looks like he pissed her off." She stomped over to Naru and Gene, grabbing their collars and jerking them to a stop.

"Sit down and fucking put on your thinking caps!" she shouted, flinging them onto the couch. John, Alice, Masako and Yasu just managed to move out of the way as they fell onto the cushions. They stared up at her in surprise, their expressions identical. "You aren't going to save either Mai or Annabeth by pacing paths in the hardwood! The only way you're going to save them is to get your heads out of your asses and get to work! Start thinking! Start coming up with a plan! Jesus!" She threw her hands out, disappearing out the door. Daniel scrambled from his seat, following her.

"S-she's right," Gene said first, coming from his daze the quickest which was a surprise on so many levels.

Naru snapped out just after him, jumping into work mode immediately. His gears spun and whirred, picking up speed with every second until the others could have sworn they heard them turning. "Well, if the ghost really did take them, then they've got to be in the building somewhere. We need to find another person who was hear when that man was killed and ask them who he was. Yasu, Masako, you can do that. After that, we need to find if there are any hidden rooms that aren't on the map, and passages to those rooms. We'll split up into two man teams. John, Alice, you'll go ask around, see if anyone knows about anything close the like. The rest of us will be searching for passages and rooms." He paused, looking around at his companions. "Does everyone know what they're doing?"

"Yes, sir!" the others cried, rushing off without even a simple complaint. Base was empty within minutes of his orders, even devoid of the twins themselves in all their glory. Even Lin had taken up a task, his computer whirring in loneliness beside the monitors.

…..

I woke with a start, my breath harsh and wheezy in my ears. I stared around, trying to take in as much of my surroundings as I could before anything happened. I was pressed against something warm and solid. My hands were tied behind my back, my legs tied at the ankles. Stretching my fingers out, I grazed them across the motionless fingers of another.

"Hello?" I whispered quietly, grasping the other's fingers tightly, "Wake up. Are you alright? Can you hear me? Wake up!"

The person pressed to my back shifted, a low groan slipping from between their lips. I nudged them more, continuing asking the same questions and spitting out the same command. It felt like every word grated against my windpipe, shoving knives into the sensitive flesh. Coughing quietly, I pushed harder, needing to know that I wasn't completely alone in this endeavor. Finally, I heard the first words.

"Mai? Is that you?" the person pressed into me asked, and suddenly I knew who the person sharing my quarters was.

"A-Annabeth? How did you end up here too? Where are we anyway?" I asked, my eyes widening at the realization. For the first time since discovering the woman tied to me, I took in the rest of my surroundings.

We were in a small, enclosed cement room. Above us, the roof was made of planks of wood, like hardwood floors would be. Across the room, a metal trapdoor was inlaid in the stone. Scattered all around the room in small piles in the corners and just at random across the floor were clothes –mostly female as far as I could tell-, hypodermic needles, and small glass bottles that seemed to have once carried different drugs. In one pile, I could see Sakura's royal purple jumpsuit peeking out.

"Oh god," I whispered, not needing Annabeth's confirmation to answer my own question.

She gave it anyway. "Yes," the growled bitterly, "We're in his lair now. I just hope the others find us soon." Her voice was just as harsh and rough as my own, as if we hadn't drank any water in the past month.

"What… what is he going to do to us?" I whispered hesitantly, almost fearful of the answer. I wanted to know what to expect, but at the same time, I was afraid of what she might tell me making me not want to hear what she had to say.

Annabeth was quiet for a moment. "First… he'll give us a choice. We can… we can play along with his games, or… or he would make us." Her words came out haltingly as if she was forcing herself to remember. "Then… then he'll… he'll… I'm sorry, I don't remember very much," she whispered miserably.

"Don't worry. I don't want you to force yourself. To tell you the truth, I didn't really want you to tell me. I'm scared is all," I replied, dropping my head forward, "I… I just want to be back in Naru's arms already. I feel so safe there." I found my statement slightly ironic seeing as that had been the very place I'd been torn from.

"I know what you mean," she whispered, inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly in a long sigh.

"I'm not following." A mischievous smile was already curling across my lips. I knew exactly what she was saying, but I wanted to hear it from her own lips.

Sighing again, she said, "I want to be back in my bed… with Gene." Her voice turned quiet and tiny, and somehow I knew she was blushing a magnificent shade of red.

I stamped my feet on the ground, grinning. "I knew it! I knew you guys liked each other!" I cried triumphantly. My cry faded, leaving a frown turning down my lips. "Can I ask you a serious question?"

"Shoot for it," she said, leaning back against me.

"Why does the captain treat you like he owns you?"

Annabeth was silent, her body going rigid. "So you were the one I heard…" she murmured, "Well, he was the one who found me when I disappeared. He thinks he has some claim on me now. If he only knew how untrue that is."

I was opening my mouth to ask her my next question, but a skitter of terror shot up my spine. "He's here. It's about to start," I whispered, shrinking into a corner as best I could.

Moments later, the trapdoor slowly began to flip open.

**Man, that was… an interesting chapter, I think. Anyway, hope you liked it. I think it's funny how Naru is now constantly being chewed out. Review and feed my inner author, please?**


	19. Chapter 19: Barely Helpful

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Chapter 19: Barely Helpfull

"What have you found?" Naru asked disgruntled, back to chewing his nails. Blood trickled down his arm, but he ignored it. The pain was giving him something to focus on, helping him concentrate.

Nobody responded first. The day was almost down, and they'd found relatively nothing. Sighing, Damien and Jessica stepped forward, taking the lead in the discussion. "We found nearly nothing, Naru," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"You said nearly," Gene said, his head perking up at the simple world, "What did you find out?"

"Well, Jessica and I found some hollow floors and some of the walls outside the building. We didn't follow them because we couldn't get behind the concrete. Alice, John, Masako and Yasu found some things though," Damien replied, turning to look at the others.

Alice jumped forth, dragging John behind her. "Well, you know that stuck up, stick-up-the-ass captain dude?" she asked, grinning as she twisted back and forth, flaring out her deep red skirt.

Naru sighed, rubbing at his forehead as his head throbbed uncontrollably. He was not in the mood for her antics, but he'd indulge her for the sake of Mai who he knew would have. "Yes, Alice, yes we do. It'd be hard to forget," he said.

"Well, we found out from Annabeth's partner, that complete hunk of a man," she started, grinning teasingly at John when he shot her a jealous look with furrowed brows, "that Mr. Captain saved Annabeth!" She watched him excitedly, her eyes wide with excitement.

"And what exactly does that mean?" Gene asked. He was beginning to feel his twin's migraine, and he couldn't tell if it was from his connection with his twin or his own growing headache.

Alice sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. "It means," she said in a condescending tone, drawing out the word, "That that jackass has been to wherever the ghost is hiding Annabeth and Mai. Come on, think guys, it's not that hard."

"It is when your head is about to split open," Gene grumbled under his breath, snapping his eyes to his twin, "Why do we keep having theses? I know Mai and Masako have already had a few, but why us this time?"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out along the way," Naru replied, leaving his hand over his eyes to block out the harsh fluorescents, "Masako, Yasu, what did you find?"

Yasu jumped forward, vacating his seat that Alice instantly filled, pulling John onto her lap. John blushed lightly, but focused his attention on the conversation before him. Yasu laughed at the pair before turning back to Naru and Gene. "We talked to some of the other police officers, some of the older and some of the younger ones too, seeing at the death only happened a couple years ago. Turns out, all of them knew about it. No one is new. So, his name was Nicholas Carth. He was twenty-seven when the lady shot him. I haven't gotten much more than that besides the fact that he killed her little sister."

"I can see why she killed him," Ayako muttered to no one in particular, mainly herself, "I mean, if anyone ever killed anyone that close to me, like Mai or Masako, I'd kill them too."

Everyone was silent for a moment, imagining the many different ways Ayako would kill a person. A shiver ran down their spines.

"How did they discover that he killed her?" Naru asked, looking up from his thoughts.

"Well, that's the thing, they didn't. They had relatively no evidence to prove that he'd committed the murder," Yasu said, shrugging and dramatically throwing a couple papers over his shoulder. They fluttered, lighting all over Jessica and Damien.

"What evidence did they have?"

"He was hanging around the body after only about an hour after it was disposed of. He had a syringe in his pocket, determined to have been the one that lethally injected her with some kind of drug, and his… reaction."

"His reaction?" Lin asked, finally jumping into the conversation. He turned in his chair to raise an eyebrow at the younger man.

"Yes, they said he was smug like they'd never be able to prove his guilt, and he never panicked, not even once."

"That is very suspicious," Naru muttered before shaking his head, "That's not the reason we're here." He paused, as if struggling with the next words to come from his mouth. "Tomorrow… we'll look into those hollow walls and floors after getting permission to break a few things. For now, if you wish, go back to the hotel. Sleep. Eat. Whatever. I'm staying here for night watch." He turned from the group towards the monitors. Gene came up beside him, taking an identical stance.

That left the rest of the group to glance between each other. 'Let's go make tea,' Yasu mouthed to the group, tiptoeing from the room. The rest followed him just as quietly.

…..

I slumped forward across Annabeth's body as the man above me finally released the hair he held. A bloody knife was cradled familiarly in his palm. Our clothes hung limply on are frames, barely clinging to us by a few threads. Lacerations and slashes crisscrossed over our skin and shirts.

"Night has fallen, my darlings," the man murmured, his face turned towards the wooden planks of the ceiling. A serene smile spread across his face, and I could almost forget all of the things he'd done to us over the course of the day. Almost.

My vision was a kaleidoscope of colors, either from the drugs he'd given the pair of us earlier or the dehydration and hunger we were already feeling strongly. I was taking my best guess on the drugs. I was starting to come down from my high, and it was wreaking havoc on my body. Sweat poured down my feverish skin, drenching my clothes and stinging my cuts, as my muscles trembled. Annabeth was in a similar state to me, making quiet gagging noises, but she'd so far managed to repress the vomit.

The man turned his smile down at me, his eyes brighter than I'd ever seen them in any of my dreams. "Don't worry, my darlings. As your body gets used to what I have for you, this'll stop," he told as sweetly, sweeping a hand over us.

'_Liar,_' I thought bitterly through my haze. I'd seen what happens to addicts. They're crashes never got any easier. If anything, they had gotten worse. I was just hoping that the pair of us was found before we learned what that was like for ourselves.

"For now, I must leave you," he said, crouching beside us. He brushed our bangs back from our foreheads. If we'd had enough strength, I'm sure we both would have jerked away in revulsion. "I have some things to attend to above. Do not make much noise. Be good." He pushed to his feet, disappearing through the trapdoor within moments.

"Annabeth?" I croaked, forcing myself on shaking arms off of her. I collapsed beside her, groaning in pain and exhaustion.

"I'm alright," she choked, pushing away from me more quickly than I'd seen her move since this morning. She dropped to her hands and knees next to a pile of clothing, emptying her stomach of whatever was left in it. I cringed at the sound of her dry heaving. "Not really." She crawled back over to out clean corner, dropping face down beside me. "I'm sorry. The room is going to smell disgusting now."

"Don't worry," I mumbled, "I can't smell anymore, and I think I'm going to pass out."

"That sounds about right," she mumbled. Within moments, black had engulfed my vision, and I was falling into oblivion. If Annabeth stayed awake longer, I would never know.

**There you go. Hope this was interesting enough. I have a meet almost half the day in a place an hour and a half away tomorrow, gotta get up at 5:00 am tomorrow. Dammit, it's Saturday! I should be sleeping in *sigh* Anyway, I'll maybe see you all tomorrow. Review please, and wish me luck at the meet? :D**


	20. Chapter 20: Nothing but Trouble

**So guys, I realized in the last chapter I spelled the word "Helpful" in the title wrong. Whoo, go me -_-**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt**

Chapter 20: Nothing but Trouble

The Captain in all of his splendor stood outside the station, staring at the familiar façade with a mix of contempt and confusion. He'd been working here for over ten years now, and had thought he knew everything there was to know about the building. That obviously wasn't the case. There must have been hidden passages or a hidden door somewhere leading to the room Annabeth and Mai were surely being held in.

He thought back quickly, recounting his memories of how'd he'd found Annabeth the first time. It'd simply been by chance one night when they were partying in the station. He'd stumbled outside, sliding along the wall in search of a good place to throw up everything in his stomach. It was disgraceful, but it was better than looking week in front of his subordinates. In his haze, he'd unknowingly slipped into the passage leading under the building, even though they didn't have anything close to a basement, and found Annabeth.

The only thing was… he couldn't remember which way around the building he had traveled or how far along he'd walked to reach the door.

Snarling under his breath, the Captain moved around one side of the building, sliding his fingers along the smooth wall, his fingers catching in the occasional niche. He dug his stubby nails into the concrete ready to rip a piece out with his bare hands. Why the hell couldn't he find this damn entrance?

"Fuck this, I'm leaving," he growled, spinning on his heel. He was already marching off when a thought rang through his head. '_If you leave now, those SPR people might find her first. __**That guy**__ might find her first._' A shiver of disgust rocketed up his spine, and he spun back towards his task. "I'm going to be the one to find her. Not that man. Not any of those women. Me," he muttered under his breath.

Looking in from the outside, he may have come off as a complete nutcase, talking to himself about a woman that had been abducted by an invisible perpetrator. He would have looked obsessive and insane, which in truth, was exactly what he was. Though if that would ever be admitted would remain a mystery. He was lucky, though, in the fact that the hour had barely few people wandering around, so he was saved from the embarrassment of having people witness his mental instability.

The Captain's irritation grew with every step he took, his mutterings increasing as the hours wore thin. It was hours later when he finally stopped, his breath coming hard. Sweat dripped down his brow and slid mercilessly down his spine. His search had turned out nothing, not even a scrap of information that he could use to find that woman. "What's the point?" he grumbled, glaring off at a tree somewhere behind the building, "It's not like she enjoys your company. How is saving her again going to change her opinion of you? You can't force her to stay in a fabricated, forced relationship."

"You really are pathetic," a male voice chuckled from behind him.

The Captain frowned. His back was pressed against the wall so how could… Jumping away from the wall, he spun and withdrew his handgun from its holster at his hip. He expertly aimed the weapon at the wall, feeling slightly crazier simply because he was ready to shoot a wall. "Who is there?" he called quietly enough that people around the front of the building wouldn't be able to make out his words.

The laughter, maniacal and hateful, came once again. "Stupid man, you can't hurt me with that toy," the voice said once more, echoing from every direction instead of simply from the wall this time.

"What do you want?" the Captain questioned, turning in a slow circle, but always keeping his peripheral vision on high alert for the slightest sigh of movement.

"I want you to stop," the voice said, dropping down dangerously until it was threatening.

He had to think on the simple statement for a short moment before he could respond with something, anything. "I can't."

The laughter was back. "Oh, yes you can. It's simple really. As easy as one, two, three. You just stop. You put your harmless toy away, turn the way you came, and go home, forgetting you ever tried to look. If you don't, I can't guarantee exactly what'll happen to you, but I assure you, it will not be pleasant."

"If you're here threatening me, then I must be close to something," the Captain replied, turning his eyes back to the wall, surveying it with as much interest as a horse would a sugar cube, which was quite a lot. "You can't hurt me, so what is keeping me from continuing?" Boldly, he reached out a hand, tracing it down the cement. Under his fingers, he could feel a slight impression. Before his could skim further, a crushing grip encircled his wrist, pushing his bones closer together and making them rub against one another. He let out a short cry of pain, dropping the handgun he'd still been clutching.

"Oh, but I assure you, I most certainly **can** harm you, and I most certainly **will** hurt you," the voice said, finally accompanied by the freckled face and blue eyes of their resident haunt.

"Y-you-" the Captain stammered, words leaving him.

The man smiled widely, showing pearly white teeth. "Yes. Me."

…..

The short shout of surprise and pain echoed through the nearly silent halls of the police station. The SPR team, still safely stashed away in Base even hours after Naru had dismissed them, glanced around nervously.

"Uh, guys, what was that?" Monk asked, staring at the ceiling more than anything, having heard it the most from above.

"Maybe it was the tortured screams of the souls from the war come to haunt you, Monk," Yasu joked, though the look on his face made it appear as if he was completely serious.

Monk looked at him dryly, but Naru replied with, "Not likely. It was most likely an actual living person." He'd paused in his own activity to look around the room with pursed lips. "John, Monk, Damien, Yasu, Gene, go check as see if there is anyone left in the building, and if there's anyone outside."

"Alright, Naru," John said, pulling himself from his chair without complaint as usual. Dark circles marred the skin beneath his eyes, making him look even paler than he already originally was.

"You're really going to send us out there? What if there's a murderer or something out there?" Monk asked, watching him incredulously.

Naru turned to him, his eyebrow arching high towards his hairline. "You're in a police station. You'll be just outside. If you're so concerned, then grab a bulletproof vest." He shrugged, turning away before Monk could return from his shocked state with an attempted witty retort.

Mumbling insults under his breath, Monk marched out of the room with a laughing Damien, Gene, John, and Yasu. It was a long couple of minutes before the next person spoke up.

"What do you really think that was?" Lin asked, surprising everyone, but Naru.

Naru kept his eyes down, staring at the paper he was scribbling feverishly across. What he was scribbling, the rest of the group may never find out, but obviously it was important. More important than work because he never wrote that fast when it came even to work. "Nothing good," he replied curtly.

…..

The anguished scream of someone being utterly ruined woke me from my crash induced stupor. My eyes fluttered open, staring around at the room blurrily. For a moment, I didn't remember where I was. Then I heard Annabeth's groan.

The entire day came rushing back in one fell swoop, dropping me back to the hard, cement floor. I stayed there, my cheek pressed against its cool surface, for a long time, staring at Annabeth's back that was directly in my line of sight.

Groaning, I pushed myself back to my hands and knees, staring around. I crawled closer to my torture companion, shaking her gently. "Annabeth, Annabeth did you hear that?" I whispered urgently, my words slurred and sloppy in my own ears.

Mumbling, Annabeth swatted at my hand. "Just leave me here to die," she groaned, turning her face more into the floor, "I don't care what's happening outside unless it's my partner or one of the SPR members getting hurt, or someone coming to save us."

"What if that scream was Gene getting hurt?" I mumbled, worry bubbling up inside my chest, "What if it was Naru getting hurt?" A shudder rushed through my body. I buried my face in Annabeth's bloody shirt, tears springing to my eyes at the mere thought. "What if it was because he is looking for us?"

Sighing, Annabeth pushed herself up, wrapping a steadying arm around my shoulders. "Don't worry. I'm sure they're all fine. It was probably just some idiot screaming bloody murder for no reason." I didn't believe her simply because of the tension that ran through her body, but I wanted so badly to believe her.

She was opening her mouth to say something more, but she was cut off by the loud thundering of boots across the wood above our heads. "Hurry, it's the Captain!" someone called with what sounded like her partner's voice.

"What?" the other police officers who had stayed behind called back in surprise. Chairs scrapped across the wood, and boots pounded over the boards. The voices slowly faded, but not completely.

Annabeth's face drained to chalk white, her hand wrapping around mine. "I-I guess we k-know i-it wasn't the others now," she stammered in a halting attempt to make light of the situation.

**So, there you guys go, the next chapter. I had to take some time off on Saturday and Sunday because I was sooooo tired. The meet lasted for hours. I left at 5:30 am to get there by 7:30, and didn't get home to 4:00 pm. I got a nice tan on my face though so… *shrugs* Anyway, I got another one this Friday, so we'll see if I can get up a chapter that day or not. Hope you enjoyed with chapter! Review, please, and thank you! :D**


	21. Chapter 21: First Loss

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt**

**P.S. – Unedited because I'm a lazy fuck :P**

Chapter 21: First Loss

"What do you mean? What happened to the Captain?" one of the other officers shouted from down the hall, his hand pressed over the receiver to his cell, "What happened? Is he okay, or does he need an ambulance?"

"He needs an ambulance!" another female called back, her hysteria growing by the minute, "I don't think he's going to make it!"

"What?" the man called back in surprise and a little bit of fear. He turned back to his cell, spouting off the information before ending the call and running after the others. No matter how much they gripped or disliked their Captain, they cared for him as much as they cared for each other. They wouldn't just leave him to die. "What happened? Who did it? How did it happen?" He burst through the front doors in time for another officer, Annabeth's partner, so hear the questions.

"We're not sure about the who. All we're sure of is that someone shot him with his own gun, muffling it with what we think was a jacket, and then the person tried to strangle him," he told the other man, his face set in a scowl.

The pair rushed around the corner Annabeth's partner had rounded, and hurried over to the scene the SPR team was standing beside. They stood rigidly, their arms crossed over their chests. Naru stood just in front of the group, surveying the scene with a blank mask, taking in the details as analytically as possible. He watched with curious eyes as the officers went about securing the securing the scene and collecting evidence as they waited for the ambulance.

The woman shot an accusatory finger at the group. "What are they doing here? They're going to contaminate the scene. What if they were the ones who assaulted the Captain?" she shot at the other officers even as she went tramping through the scene herself.

"If I may point out, you're contaminating the scene more than we are," Gene shot back at her, his polite attitude gone in the blink of an eye. The kidnapping of Annabeth and Mai had sucked all of his kindness out through a straw and spat it on the ground.

The woman snarled at him, her hand pressed to the Captain's uninjured shoulder. She glanced down at him in concern, registering his labored breaths. "You're not trained officers."

"And obviously you weren't trained that well so we're even," Gene muttered under his breath, casting his eyes down the length of the cement wall.

Before the woman could growl a retort, Naru intervened with his own two sense. "My people were all in the room we've been allotted except for five of our males who were going to check on the person who screamed **after** they screamed. We were all in the room before then. We have video proof if that's what you need."

The look on the woman's face was priceless. She looked absolutely shocked that someone had actually stood up to her. It was like she expected respect just because of her job. A lot of the other officers, for obvious reasons, did not like her in the slightest.

"Meisa, get out of the way!" Annabeth's partner shouted at her, his eyes narrowing on her, "You in the way and in my crime scene."

The woman shot him a scathing look, but moved away. "You need to get them out of here," she growled, pointing to the team as the medics came through with a neon orange stretcher.

"They're out of the way, and behind the yellow tape," he replied coolly, towering over her, "You, on the other hand, are not. What does that say about you, I wonder?" Alice snickered, and he shot her a glance full of mirth. He was having way too much fun telling this woman off.

She huffed her annoyance, turning on her heel and tramping out of the little box of yellow tape. Annabeth's partner sighed a long suffering sigh, running his hand through his hair. A woman in a deep blue jump suit and black plastic gloves shouldered past him. "Come on, Ryuu, stop getting in the way," the woman said playfully, her eyes darting to meet his.

He laughed nervously, "Sorry, Yumi, I'll get out of **your **scene." He turned towards the team, dropping under the yellow tape line. "Do you think…?" he started, but couldn't finish the ludicrous thought.

Naru was quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning over the scene once more. "Yes, it's very likely and possible. The signs are all there, or more lack of signs. There's no indication that another person was here," he pointed out.

Ryuu sighed, dropping his head. "I was afraid you'd say that. Oh, our superiors are going to hate this," he sighed, running a hand back through his hair, "What can we do?"

Another moment of silence. "We need permission to destroy some things," Naru said, eyes staring off down the wall. Gene had moved down the wall, trailing his fingers along the smooth surface.

Ryuu watched him warily. "What things?"

"A few walls, well, put a few holes in them at the least, and we need to tear up a section of the floor," Naru replied nonchalantly, his brow furrowing the longer he watched his twin.

The other man groaned. "Do you think this'll help find the girls?" he asked hesitantly.

"Possibly," Naru said, effectively distracted from the conversation now.

"I'll get the permission for the boss," Ryuu told him, but Naru was already moving to where Gene had paused.

"What did you find?" he asked, his fingers moving to trace the path Gene's fingers had taken. His eyes grew the few centimeters it took to make his look surprised. "Is this…" He trailed off, feeling along the dip.

"I think so," Gene murmured back, his eyes sparkling with hope.

"We need to get behind this wall," Naru called, glancing over his shoulder to see Ryuu with his cell already pressed to his ear.

…..

"The Captain didn't make it," Ryuu announced hours later as he and the team sat around Base. He stared with wide, shocked, incredulous eyes at his quietly beeping cell. The line had disconnected. "I never thought that'd ever happen to him. He seemed so strong."

"You don't have to be weak to die. The strong die too," Jessica murmured sagely in English. Damien, John and Alice nodded their agreement, leaning against each other by the door. John had a protective arm wrapped around Alice's shoulders. Damien was doing the same to Jessica.

She received bewildered looks from the rest of the team, save for the other three English speakers in the room. From them, she received muted solemn looks.

"What did your boss say?" Naru asked after a moment of uncomfortable, stifling silence. He leaned back in his swivel chair, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Even if Ryuu's boss had said no, then they'd still do it anyway and deal with the consequences later.

Ryuu sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot over the last couple of hours. "My superiors have allotted you the destruction of one section of wall, and one section of floor, so they said choose wisely," he told Naru before muttering under his breath, "Though if they really cared about the lives of two young women, then they should have given you free reign."

"I agree," Alice interjected, having heard his muttering.

It seemed that the entire room had heard him as Ayako jumped in as well, "Yeah, I mean, it's not like we'd tear the entire building down, just part of it." A hot blush crawled up the back of his neck, but he made no show of the embarrassment.

"That won't be hard," Naru answered, ignoring the two females with a shake of his head.

"We already know the two places to check," Gene finished for him, his eyes downcast towards the carpet.

Impatient, Naru pulled himself from his chair, closely followed by his twin. They seemed to be on the same wavelength for the past couple of hours. "We begin preparations now," Naru started, moving towards the door.

"And we start at dawn," Gene finished for him.

They paused at the door, turning in sync to stare at the team. "We will find them by the time the sun falls."

**Well, there you go, I hope that chapter was interesting enough. I didn't get to write yesterday because I actually went to morning practice today. That was killer. I was tired all day. Any who, I have finals tomorrow and more swim practice, so I'll see if I can post tomorrow as well, but not making any promises. Review, yes? :D**


	22. Chapter 22: Pushing

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt**

Chapter 22: Pushing

"Humans die so easily," the carrot-haired man grumped the moment he shoved the trap door open, tossing in his small draw-string bag, "I wish human men were more resilient. They're no fun."

Annabeth and I stared at him with wide-eyes, huddled in our corner. We clutched each other close, watching him as he shuffled around the small room. The debris scattered across the floor lay undisturbed as he moved over it. Something was off, and we didn't want to know what repercussions that would have for us.

"Don't you agree, darlings," he asked, finally turning to us with an easy smile. He took slow steps toward us until he was towering over us. "They are so easy to break." He face changed with each beat of my thumping heart. The easy smile turned down into a hard, angry frown, and the look in his eyes became anything but pleasant. "But they are so stubborn." He stared down at us for what seemed like hours, his eyes simply trailing over our cowering bodies. Finally, his hand shot out, wrapping tightly in Annabeth's thick auburn hair.

He jerked her from my grasp, dragging her farther and farther away. "You'll be first today," he snarled, dropping her to the floor in front of his back. He placed a booted foot on her ankle causing her to let out a sharp cry of protest.

My hands stayed outstretched towards her, wishing she were back in my arms. We were a mutual comfort. I didn't want to imagine what the days had been like for the other women who had to endure his torture alone. I didn't want to think of what it had been like for Annabeth. Now she was back in this man's position, helpless to do anything but take what he dished to her.

I cringed, pulling my hands back and slamming them over my ears as Annabeth began protesting. Her voice was raspy and dull, barely able to reach above a whisper. She let out a scream that no one would ever be able to hear. It was full of desperation and fear. It was the most horrible sound I'd ever heard in my life.

'_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't help you. I don't want to watch this_,' I thought frantically to my helpless friend who thrashed against hands that she couldn't grab, closing my eyes tightly to the scene before me, '_Naru, help us! Please!_'

…..

'_Naru, help us! Please!_' Naru flinched, pressing cool fingers to the heated skin of his forehead. His migraine jumped to a new level of pain as the cry echoed threw him mind. His pulse sent a new wave of pain slamming against the inside of his skull with each beat.

"Naru?" Ayako asked curiously, looking over at him from where she was inspecting the wooden planks in the room where all of the police officers had their desks. Several were sitting around, tapping furiously at the keys of their keyboards in an attempt to finish their reports in a timely manner. "Are you alright? Does your head hurt?"

He surprised her by nodding instead of throwing a snide remark back at her. "I just heard Mai," he mumbled, letting his eyes slip closed at his pulled his hand down his face. Behind his closed lids he saw flashes of her face. They all called to him, pulling him in.

"Naru, are you alright?" Ayako's concerned voice brought him back to reality, pulling him back to the task at hand. Even if he annoyed the ever living hell out of her sometimes, she saw him as a sort of little brother, pulling concern from her usually impartial heart. She'd never had younger siblings and she thought that maybe this was what love for a family was like. "I could probably help."

"No, I'm fine. What are you think about the floor?" he asked, waving her off with a flutter of a hand the quickly returned to his pounding head. Black spots were beginning to blotch out his vision. He needed to get out of this room before he collapsed in front of this woman and the police officers.

Ayako raised an eyebrow, but turned to stare at the floor. Her eyes flicked back to him every few seconds, her doctor and motherly instincts kicking in as she watched him. In no way did she believe him, though she wouldn't say a word just yet. "Well, I can't see anything through the cracks, and I can't hear anything that might be going on, but there definitely is a hollow space down there. It's hard to tell how large it really is."

Stepping back from the wood she'd been inspecting, she glanced around the room, tracing over Naru several times. She wished she could get closer and attempt a small examination, but she knew he'd bite her head off is she tried. "Hey, Naru, why didn't you bring Monk or one of the other guys? I'm sure they know more about structure and what not than I do."

"They were needed outside for the wall," he replied curtly, still not looking at her, "If that's all, then I'm going to go find my idiot twin." With all of the dignity he possessed, he exited the room, stumbling slightly under the pain rolling through his body. He fumbled for the door handle, falling through the open doorway as he pushed it open.

"Why do I feel like he's lying?" Ayako wondered to herself, her eyes travelling back to the floor under her feet. She couldn't push out the image that had just invaded her mind from the glimpse she got of Naru, one where he was flushed and his pupils were so blown that it looked like he'd been injecting heroin. "What's the matter with him?"

…..

"Naru? Hey, Naru-bou, where'd you go?" Yasu called as the team searched Base relentlessly even though it was obvious he wasn't in there. Lin couldn't find him anywhere on the monitors, and they were starting to worry excessively. Gene stood motionless by the door, watching the commotion through the filmy haze veiling his vision.

"Ayako, you were the last one with him! Where did he go?" Monk asked irately, glaring at the woman across the room from him, "Are you so stupid that you managed to lose an entire human being?" He ducked as a rolled up magazine flew straight for his face.

"Don't ask me! It's not like I followed him around like a lonely puppy! He left without telling me where he was going!" she shouted at him, irritation coating her words with just a hint of the concern she was feeling, "I assumed he was going to the bathroom or wanted to be alone." The pair had been at each other's throats since they'd all arrived back at Base. It was a never ending cycle of fighting.

"That doesn't mean you just let him wonder off! Think woman, or is your brain no good for anything other than thinking about your nails and clothes?" He ducked as another, much heavier object, was chucked at his face. He missed it only by a hair.

Nearly silently, Gene slipped out the door leaving his team mates to their fighting. He drifted down the hall, squinting against the artificial light of the overhead fluorescents. He moved without really thinking about it, letting his instincts pull him forward. He very literally stumbled over his twin in the hallway just off from the cells.

Pushing himself up on his hands and knees, holding his throbbing nose, he squinted at the object trying to kill him. It was much of a surprise that it turned out to be his twin. He turned in a careful circle so that he was facing Naru.

Naru was slumped against the wall, his legs stretching out into the small corridor. He was in a pocket of shadows that if it weren't for his legs, Gene never would have noticed. "Hey, Noll, wake up. We've got to get back to Base. We're about ready to begin," he called quietly as he attempted to rouse Naru.

Naru groaned, pulling his eyes open with much effort. The longer his brother touched him, the clearer his mind felt and the faster the black spots faded. Pushing his hand away, Naru struggled to pull himself up. "Are you feeling it too?" he asked, watching his twin squint painfully.

"Yeah."

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know," Gene replied truthfully, glancing around at the hallway as if the blank walls would hold the answers he wished for, "But we're going to find out one way or another." He stood slowly, pulling one of Naru's arms around his shoulder and letting Naru do the same with his. "Let's go save our girls." A nod was all of the reply he needed.

**There you go guys. Hope this was a good chapter. Sorry I took a couple days off. I had a meet on Friday and my friend was over the last two days. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! Remember, reviews are like candy and I'm feeling a bit sugar deprived :D**


	23. Chapter 23: Gone or Not

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt!**

**Unedited to the nth degree, so watch out! Sorry for all of the terrible errors you'll probably find!**

Chapter 23: Gone or Not

Without warning, and much to both Annabeth's and my relief, the man stopped in his ministration, going stock still. He stared across the room with wide, slowly turning angry eyes. His lips curled into a scowl of contempt.

Annabeth and I glanced at each other. Her eyes were half-lidded with pain, her teeth clenched against the waves that rained down from the crown of her head, where he gripped a handful of her hair, to the tips of her toes that curled against the physical feeling. Fear and hope lit her eyes as they silently asked me just one question. '_Are they coming?_'

'_I think so_,' I mouthed back, nodding with more certainty. A coil twisted in the pit of my stomach. I **knew **they were coming. They were coming for us right now. They'd find us. They were going to save us. With my certainty, I nodded even more vigorously causing a pained smile to split across her cracked and bleeding lips.

"Those damn fuckers," the man snarled, "They're searching for you, **again**. They're close." In one swift movement, he threw Annabeth's head to the concrete, his hand coming free of her hair easily. Her skull cracked loudly against the floor. She didn't make any motion to move.

"Annabeth!" I cried, scrambling towards her, ignoring the man looming menacingly over me. I cradled her head in my lap, curling my body around her protectively. I glared up at the man who had caused the red liquid to seep from my friend's skull, but he was already disappearing through the trapdoor.

"Hurry up and find us, Naru," I whispered, curling back over Annabeth so my forehead rested against hers, only hoping that the thought somehow reached him.

…..

Of course, the thought did reach him. It wormed its way between his thoughts, only a whisper in his loud, overactive mind. His mind quieted just long enough to hear the plea before springing full force back into his work. The men were taking turns pounding away at the wall while the women worked at pulling up pieces of the floor in the 'report room' as Naru had come to call it. He swung his pickaxe mercilessly at the wall, willing the stubborn concrete to break away faster.

"Whoa!" Monk cried, jumping back as a huge chunk fell forward, ready to crush him if he had continued standing where he had been.

Breathing hard, sharp gasps together with his twin, they pulled the large metal tools back up, bringing them down harder on the stone with each swing. '_Almost there. Almost there, Mai_,' he chanted in his head with every inch they gained. A collective gasp ran around the small group as they finally broke through the wall.

Before them stretched a long, dark hallway. Dust spilled from gaping hole they'd managed to create. "So, are we going in?" Damien asked casually, stepping forward. He'd be the first to go in if he had to.

"Yes," the twins, once more synchronized, said, pushing past him into the inky black beyond, Lin on their tail like a bloodhound.

The men left over took quick glances at each other. They all shrugged as John took the initiative to say, "I think we should go before we lose them… or Naru starts yelling at us." The entire group grimaced. Even with the splitting headache that had left both him and Gene immobile for the better part of an hour, Naru was being as vocal as ever, if not more so.

"Yeah," Monk muttered, ducking quickly into the passage. The last three squeezed threw was the same time, tumbling into the darkness.

…..

"Naru, where the hell are we?" Monk complained, slumping against a wall nearly an hour later. He slid down, depositing himself on the floor beside Damien who had his head between his knees. Monk couldn't tell if the younger male was sleeping or simply sitting very still.

Gritting his teeth, against irritation this time instead of pain, he rubbed at his forehead. "I don't know," he snarled, his patience waning with the every turn they took. They'd been expecting the tunnels leading under the police station to be slightly confusing, but they hadn't anticipated a fucking labyrinth. He didn't think it was simply their ineptitude that was causing them to get so readily lost. For Christ sake, they were only under the station! How far did these damn tunnels run?

Naru's internal rant was interrupted by the gentle hand that dropped down on his shoulder. He glared sideways as his twin, his question clear. "Why don't you try that?" Gene whispered just under the conversations of the other men, "I'm here, so it shouldn't have such a terrible effect on you."

Sighing, Naru nodded. He'd try anything at this point if it got him to Mai and Annabeth, then out of these tunnels. Dropping his hand into his pocket and letting his eyes slip closed, he curled his fingers around a small bracelet he'd once given her for Christmas. Images rolled through his mind, flashing past his eyes at the speed of light.

"Dude, what's happening to Naru?" Damien asked quietly, looking up at the gently glowing man. Soft light full of energy outlined his dark form. The air around him crackled with electricity.

"Using one of his abilities, but I don't think he's doing what he did in the cave on that one case," Yasu jumped into the conversation, watching the man with as much interest as the next scientist, "Maybe he's using something different."

"What, like, his psychometry? He didn't look like that when he used it back at the Urado Mansion," Monk replied, only managing to confuse the man between them who hadn't been caught up on the team's entire adventures thus far.

John leaned away from the wall, catching the pair's attention. "I believe his intensity affects the amount of power he releases. Right now, he's stressed and worried beyond belief so I'd imagine that he'd be using more power than usual in attempts to find the girls," he suggested quietly, his eyes trained on the glowing man as if he may disturb him.

Gene, glowing as brightly as his twin, cracked open an eye at the small group. He pressed a finger to his lips, closing his eyes tightly. After what felt like only a few moments, but had surely been a good fifteen minutes, the twin opened their eyes. Naru pointed down a hall as his glow faded. "We had to go this way," he said, turning into the hall and starting up a fast jog without waiting for the others.

'_No!_' the inhuman voice of Nicholas Carth, their resident serial killer ghost, screamed through the corridors, '_You cannot have them! I won't let you!_' Wind rushed past them, icy and bone chilling. The sound of a door slamming echoed back to them.

Pushing hard, Naru and Gene both increased their speed, darting through the hall faster than they'd ever thought possible. Naru yanked his twin to a stop, pointing to the ceiling. "What the… a trapdoor? Seriously?" Gene asked incredulously.

Twin screams echoed from the ceiling, scratchy and quiet as they were, but still audible. "Help me up!" Naru said urgently. He placed a foot on the knee that was offered to him, hoisting himself towards the ceiling.

"Hold on, Naru!" Monk called, but he was too late. With more agility than any of them thought he possessed, and Gene standing up with holding his leg, Naru kicked open the trapdoor.

Scrambling through the hole in the ceiling, he hoisted himself into the small cement room. The smell was the first to hit him. Raw and rancid, the smell of vomit almost had him retching. The next thing that hit him was the sight of the room that surrounded him. Dirty syringes, small empty glass bottles, ripped and tattered clothes decorated the floor. Above them, boards were being pulled from their slots one by one.

…..

A sharp, hoarse cry brought his eyes up to glare daggers at the ghost holding tightly to my hair. "Let them go," he snarled.

'_I will never let them go. If you get rid of me, they die too,_' Nicholas growled, holding both of us by handfuls of our hair. He flinched like he'd just been punched in the face, taking a step back. '_Stop it! Stop!_'

Below him, Naru could hear both John and Monk chanting loudly. Their voices mingled with angry shouts, and the chanting of Masako and Ayako above them. Five small balls of white bolted up through the floor, shooting towards the spirit across the room. Naru's own energy crackled through the small space, unreleased, but ready at a moment's notice.

'_No! Get away! Get away from me!_' The ghost swung his arms around wildly, his fists still clenched in the hair of his victims.

"Naru!" I shouted, my voice full of pain. My eyes locked on him, my hand stretching towards him when suddenly, I was tumbling towards the unforgiving floor. I slammed into it hard, peeking through my arms just in time to see Nicholas being ripped apart. I flinched as I heard his ending scream.

'_I'll be back for you. Mark my words. You will never be safe_,' Nicholas' voice whispered harshly in my ear, dissipating slowly into oblivion. I knew that there was no way he'd ever be able to come back, but a bolt of fear shuddered down my spine, settling to coil in my stomach.

"Mai!" Naru shouted, his voice strained, just as Gene called, "Annabeth!" Both boys navigated through the room. They collapsed beside us, scooping us into their arms and cradling us against their chests.

"Naru," I sighed happily, snuggling into his warmth, "You guys came for us."

"Of course we did, stupid," he snorted, squeezing my tightly.

"Looks like the party is over!" Jessica called over her shoulder from the ceiling to whoever was standing behind her. Turning to us, she shouted, "Stay there, guys. We're going to throw down a ladder." The only response we could muster was a week thumbs up.

…..

"So, the thing that was caused our headaches was the ghost's presence?" I asked in wonder from my white hospital bed beside Annabeth. Naru and Gene sat in the small lane between us, fingers intertwined with their respective partners. The rest of the team and Ryuu sat at the foot of our beds.

"That's what we figured, but in Naru's case I think it was just a build-up of energy that had nowhere to go," Gene said with an easy, happy smile.

I frowned. "But you were there so couldn't you have acted as the mediator?"

"I did when he was using his powers, but I think you are actually absorbing more of his overflow more than I am."

"I don't understand."

Gene frowned, glancing up at the ceiling, "Okay, let's put it this way. Unlike me, who simply converts the energy and sends it back, I think you take that energy and use it yourself. Though I lesson the pressure, you relieve it. His body has probably gotten accustomed to your body's help as well." He shrugged, like it was a simple matter to understand.

Frowning, I shook my head, not wanting to have more details shoved into my head. "So, what are you two going to do now that the case is over?" I asked, looking to Annabeth and Ryuu.

They glanced at each other, their lips pursed in consideration. "I think… I'm going to find a new job. Maybe something in the Shibuya area." She grinned inconspicuously at the man handing her hand tightly.

I grinned to myself, happy for Gene and my new friend.

"And I think I'll jump up the command ladder, change a few things at the station," Ryuu said with a shrug, looking around at the group, "I'd like to see all of you guys again though. Don't be strangers. I don't bite."

"All dogs bite," Alice interjected with a smirk.

Jessica finished for her with an identical smirk in the girl's direction, "It's just a matter of how strong the bite is." The two women laughed together, once again leaving the non-English speakers in the dark.

"Anyway…" Masako murmured, trailing off.

"Do we get to go home soon?" I blurted out, suddenly ready to be free of this city.

"As soon as the doctor says you're ready to go," Naru replied curtly. I let out a loud groan, causing a string of laughter to spiral through the room. I couldn't keep my frown for long. I grinned. It was good to finally be back with my friends and family.

**Not the last chapter, the next chapter will be the last chapter. This ride was good, and I loved it. I hope this ending to this case didn't suck too much. I was kind of stuck on this one. Anyway, how many of you noticed my terrible stumble over P.O.V.? I thought it was blaringly obvious if you didn't. Anyway, I'll see you for the last chapter, and I hope y'all review! :D**


	24. Epilogue: Return

**So, I have no good reason for this ending. I am sorry, but I was trying out different endings. Can you believe I wrote this over a year ago?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt**

Epilogue: Return

"Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home, Mai?" Damien asked, leaning against the doorjamb to his front door. Jessica stood beside him balancing a baby boy on her hip, bouncing him on her hip and entertaining him while still paying attention to the conversation.

"Yeah, Mai, it's getting late. You should let him walk you home," she interjected with a wide, teasing grin because she knew that it would take much longer if he accompanied me.

I shook my head vigorously, tapping my shoes so that they slipped completely into place. "No, I'll be fine. We're just a few block away. Plus, we'd get so sidetracked that it'd take three hours to get back. We can't be doing that," I said laughing easily. Even after all these years, it was still easy to talk and joke with this pair.

"Well, alright then," the pair conceded, "Just be careful alright? Stay to the light."

"Yes, Mom. Yes, Dad," I said jokingly, backing down their hallway, "I'm almost twenty-seven now, you don't have to treat me like a child. That's Monk and Ayako's job."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Get home!" Damien called, watching until I disappeared around a corner to shut his door softly.

I swung around, trotting quickly out of their apartment complex and down the road. The night was cool with stormy, cloud-covered skies. "I should get home soon. Naru will be getting worried," I murmured to myself as I turned down another side street. There were no lights down this particular road leaving my in inky darkness.

Humming quietly under my breath, I moved along, the smile from my visit still lingering on my lips. By the time I noticed the extra cold leaking through my thin layers of clothing, it was too late.

'_I told you I'd be back. I've got you now_,' the raspy, husky voice of one ghost I hadn't heard in many years whispered in my ear. My attempt to scream was silenced by the hand that slammed over my mouth. A muffled screech pushed through my lips as pain curled through my body and tears rolled down my face.

'_I'm sorry, Naru. I love you. I love you all_,' I thought at the man I knew would hear it even nearly a mile away before only pain became my reality.

…..

Naru bolted into a sitting position on the couch as that one, mournful thought rolled through his sleep muddled brain. Fear pierced the deepest part of him. "Mai," he whispered fearfully.

Sirens split the still night air. Blue and red lights flashed through the slats in the curtains creating colorful patterns across the ceiling. The children who slept in the back rooms furthest from the door let out cries of fear.

"Daddy!" the younger twins cried from their room, tears obvious in their voices.

Sophia and Matthew, their older sister and brother, exited their room, the same fear they felt brightening their chocolate eyes. "Daddy, something happened to Mommy," they murmured together, reverting back to the childish names they'd used for their parents that they only returned to when they were terrified.

"Stay here. Lock the door. You're in charge," he told the pair quickly, his mind reeling as he stuffed his feet into his shoes, "Don't open the door, unless they're part of the team. We'll be back soon." He dropped down, pressing his lips to their forehead before darting out the door.

He sprinted towards the sirens, weaving in and out of people with agility that he hadn't possessed for around five years. He followed the wails of the sirens and the whispers around him. His heart raced, threatening to break through his ribs, but not in a good way. The horrifying scene he was met with as he finally arrived at the crime scene had his heart stopping.

Mai lay on the concrete, her blood painting the area scarlet. Her clothes, once blue, had been turned a deep violet with the red of her blood. She had been cut and slashed and violated, her body and clothing the only evidence he needed. A police officer, Ryuu by the looks of him, was respectfully placing a sheet over her body.

"Mai!" Naru shouted, ducking under the yellow tape blocking the area off.

Two officers brought him to a stop, holding out their arms. He rammed into them, desperate to reach her. "Sir, you can't come in here. This is a crime scene," one said sternly, pushing him back a few steps.

"No, I have to get to her," he snarled, struggling against the pair.

"Sir, you can't!" the other officer shouted.

"But I have to! She's my wife! Mai!" he shouted for her, reaching desperately for her between the pair blocking his path.

Ryuu hurried over, the sound of Naru's voice drawing him to the spot. "Naru, I am so sorry about Mai, but please stand back and let us do our job," he said soothingly, the mournful look in his eyes only accentuated by the tears brimming in his eyes.

A female officer moved in, whispering soothing, kind words as she pushed gently on his chest. That small push, that gentle touch so like Mai's brought him back some of his sanity, even though there was no sanity in this moment.

He took a slow, cautious step back. "I… I have to make a few calls," he murmured, dropping his eyes to the ground and backing away a few more steps.

"Sir-" the female officer began in a sad voice, but he didn't let her finish.

He turned on his heel and walked briskly to the end of the short street. He dropped down on the curb, hanging his head between his knees. Tears slipped fear of their cage, slipping down his face. A ragged sob shook his shoulders. He wasn't known for crying, but he couldn't have stopped the tears this time even if he'd tried. "Why?" he sobbed quietly, clasping his fingers over the back of his head.

A thought crept its way into the turmoil that was currently his mind and emotions. He wiped the tears from his face hard, Mai wouldn't have wanted him to cry. There'd be time for that later anyway. Right then, he needed to focus on their children and the others of the SPR team.

He pulled his cell from his pocket, jabbing in the first number that came to mind. He waited impatiently as the phone rang, then…

"Noll? What is it?" asked a sleepy and very comfortingly familiar voice on the other end.

"Gene, I need you and Annabeth to go over to Mai's and my apartment and watch the kids," Naru said, hanging his head and refusing to look up even as he felt the eyes of bystanders on him.

Suddenly, all the sleepiness was gone from Gene's voice. "Okay, that's fine. What's wrong? What's happened?" His voice held worry and concern. In the background, Naru could hear him and Annabeth rushing to get dressed.

The words lodged in his throat. He felt the overwhelming sadness try to overtake him again. Tears crawled back up his throat, burning the back of his eyes. He tried to force the words out, but they just wouldn't come.

"Naru?" Gene asked, worriedly. A door slammed, keys jingled, shoes slapped against pavement.

"Mai's dead," Naru finally choked out, forcing the words from his throat, "Someone murdered her." The tears spilled over his eyelashes once more. His brother would be the only one he'd cry to.

"Oh my God, Naru. Do you need me to…?"

"I need you to go watch Sophie, Matthew, Micah, and Blaine," he told his twin sternly even through his tears.

"Okay, but if you need anything…"

"Help me call the others."

"Okay, you want me to just call the entire team?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Of course," he said before disconnecting.

…..

"Daddy, why are we putting Mama in the ground?" Blaine asked innocently, looking up at Naru. He had his hand clutched around hers. Tears sparkled in her eyes as she picked up on the feelings of all of those around her.

"She won't be able to breathe if they put her in the ground, Daddy," Micah said, holding onto his twin's hand. Sophie held onto Naru's other hand while Matthew held onto hers, tears streaming down their pale faces. They understood perfectly what had happened.

"Mommy," she whimpered quietly, trying to act as strong as her father.

Gene appeared beside them, tear tracks running down his own face. "M-Micah, B-Blaine, come here to Uncle Gene," he said, holding out his arms to them. They threw themselves into his arms, sobs coming from their small bodies. He picked them up, coming to stand beside his twin.

Naru bent down, pulling his two older children into his arms and cradling them against his chest. They buried their faces in his neck, sobbing their hearts out now. He could only just contain himself enough to not do the same.

The rest of the SPR team slowly stepped up beside them, Ryuu amongst this group. Everybody Mai knew made a circle around them and Mai's grave, listening silently as John gave a sermon. The casket was slowly lowered into the hole. Flowers were tossed gently inside, quiet words spoken for the women they all loved. Sobs echoed.

Hours later after the hole had been filled in and the others had dispersed, the team was still there, sitting around the grave. Sleeping children, dreaming of their mothers and happier times, leaned against each other in a small group. Naru only wished he could do the same.

"I love you Mai, always have, always will," he whispered, staring at the name on her gravestone, "We'll always miss you, never forget that." The tears he'd been holding back finally rolled down his face. He closed his eyes, leaning into his brother, and let himself grieve.

**THE END**

**I am so sorry you guys, this almost made me cry myself TT-TT Thank you all for staying with me until the end. I can't thank you enough. I guess my last question for y'all is, "How was it?"**


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